


A Moving Sea Between the Shores

by abluevixen (knightofbows)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Canon-Typical Violence, Emissary!Stiles, Hale Pack, Hurt!Derek, Hurt!Stiles, M/M, McCall Pack, alpha!Derek, alpha!Scott
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-03-29 03:40:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 26,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3880873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightofbows/pseuds/abluevixen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're so fucked. They fucked up so bad. And it's all Stiles' fault.</p><p>"Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls." - Khalil Gibran</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They are so very fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the amazing [spider999now](http://spider999now.tumblr.com/) made a lovely lovely [fanart](http://spider999now.tumblr.com/post/141380467567/im-bleeding-out-so-if-the-last-thing-that-i-do) that, actually, is in no way related to this fic, but depicts a scene almost exactly as it occurs in this chapter. it's really uncanny.
> 
> with her permission, i've added the art to the chapter. she is incredibly skilled and talented and is one of my absolute favorite artists, so please be sure to check her out! a lot of her work can be purchased through redbubble [here](http://www.redbubble.com/people/spider999now?ref=artist_title_name).

(art by [spider999now](http://spider999now.tumblr.com/))

They fucked up. They fucked up. They fucked up.

It was a mantra thrumming through Stiles’ head as his feet fell heavy on the forest floor, propelling him further into the darkness, into the shadows. Mist tumbled through the gaps between trees, and above him, the light of the full moon filtered through thick clouds and even thicker forest canopy.

They fucked up so bad.

Erica was down, Boyd encumbered with getting her to safety.

No, _he_ fucked up so bad.

Kira and Scott had provided what cover and distraction they could, but Stiles was the easiest target of them all—the human—and Derek could only protect Stiles for so long when facing down a small militia of hunters.

He should have planned better, should have considered more options, should have consulted more resources. But he didn’t, he hadn’t. He’d been too cocky, too confident, too bolstered with his newfound powers to consider the very real possibility of failure.

Or maybe they’d scraped their way out of so many hopeless situations, he just assumed they’d do it again.

But he fucked up.

Stiles forced himself to slow as the trees thinned. Somewhere between their plan going to shit and Scott telling him to run, he’d gotten turned around. His Jeep was somewhere closer to the old Hale house, in the opposite direction from where he ended up. Panic. Panic forced his blood hot and his nerves singing. It was a loss of control he couldn’t afford, but had succumbed to it anyway.

Chest heaving, he doubled over and rested his hands on his knees. His lungs ached and his legs burned. In the distance, he heard his wolves roaring, howling, and heard the answering pops of gunfire. Explosions sounded like grenades or Kira’s thunder—Stiles still couldn’t really tell the difference—and had him indecisive in his exhaustion.

Scott had told him to run.

Derek hadn’t even wanted him there.

_“No, Stiles. It’s too dangerous. Stay here. If we’re not back in two hours, then you can worry.”_

_“Fuck that, Derek. What’s the point of it all if I’m stuck here like some damsel in a tower?”_

_“You’re even less useful if you’re dead. Just. Stay. Here.”_

The decision was made for him when he heard another round of gunfire, and a particularly pitched roar.

Fear gave him new strength, or maybe his Spark revitalized his fatigued muscles. Whatever it was kept the crippling panic at bay and had Stiles moving forward.

He blinked his tired eyes and opened his body to the power locked within it. His vision shifted. His Spark, his emissary magic. He called it his Daredevil sight when he’d tried to explain it to Scott, but to anyone on the outside, his were the eyes of a Darach—cloudy pale like an oncoming storm.

The sky cracked with a blinding bolt of lightning.

He’d been training for months, independently and with Deaton’s guidance, but he’d learned to let the power control him instead of the other way around. It filled him full and pulled him taught, drawing him with its siren’s call and hypnotic thrum.

The wind kicked up, howling as violently as the werewolves prowling the woods.

Stiles honed in on the auras and energies radiating from everything, like strings he could pluck and manipulate.

Searching.

Through the gloom of the forest, Stiles’ vision was free from the play of shadows and low light of night. Through the dark form of trees, Derek’s aura shown stark and bright, blue like his wolf’s eyes before becoming an alpha.

Stiles kept running.

Nearly to the clearing, Stiles counted the auras of the hunters—individual in color and brightness and sharpness, but ultimately inconsequential; six in all—attacking Derek. Bullets and bolts whipped through the air, and Derek’s reflexes were quick enough to avoid many of them. They lodged and shredded the surrounding trees. Derek’s roar, his raw power as an alpha, left even these experienced killers shooting wildly.

“Der—!”

Stiles hit the ground with a hard thud, his breath wooshing from his chest in a rush.

Something latched painfully onto Stiles’ right ankle. Reached up right from the ground and yanked him to it. One moment, Stiles’ stormy gaze was focused on the pulse of Derek’s aura, the next he’s flat against the damp earth of the ground.

Auras flickered out of existence until Stiles’ sight was subject to dappled moonlight and mist.

It felt like being hit with a brick.

But as he blinked back the sparks glittering his vision, Stiles pushed himself to his hands and knees. When he tried to climb to his feet, metal teeth digging into his flesh kept him on the ground, kept him immobile; he could hardly feel his foot. Then he looked down, and found the steel-jaw trap around his ankle.

A bandage-wrapped face; tattered bomber jacket; teeth like broken glass. Stiles could almost feel the breath—hot and pungent like rotting flesh—ghosting over his cheeks, hissing in his ear. The back of his throat tickled with the wings of flies, his stomach twisting.

_Let me in. Let me in._

Stiles screamed his lungs raw, his own roar piercing through the gunfire and explosions and werewolf howls. It quickly died into sobs as he twisted around to reach for his bloodied ankle with trembling hands, but each movement tore another cry from him as pain arced through his magic-frazzled nerves.

_No no no no no. Let me out._

_Let me in, Stiles._

“Stiles.”

_No no nonono._

“Stiles!”

Stiles sucked in a hard breath, his tear-stained face cradled in warm, damp hands. Each stroke of calloused thumb smeared blood and tears alike—the copper tang sharp so near Stiles’ nose—but the touch was grounding. It wrenched Stiles away from his nightmares.

Derek hovered over him, his handsome face filthy from the fight, his clothes torn and blood-stained. His fangs had receded, as had the fur that covered his face in a shift. But his chest heaved with his breath, his iridescent eyes ringed in alpha crimson. “You’re going to be okay, okay?” the wolf murmured. “I just need you to stay calm. You’re on the verge of shock.”

Stiles nodded faintly, but his gaze drifted. Away from Derek’s and over his shoulder, to try to see where the trap held him fast. Derek tightened his hold on Stiles’ face, and Stiles blinked. He reached up and wrapped his trembling hand around Derek’s wrist.

“Don’t look at it,” Derek said. “Keep your eyes on me.”

Stiles nodded again. “Yeah, okay.”

Then the crossbow cocked, the spring clicking into place.

But by the time either of them registered the sound, it was already too late.

Because Derek had been focused on Stiles.

Because Stiles had been focused on Derek.

Derek jerked forward and a soft grunt escaped his parted lips when the arrow thudded into his back. His hands fell from Stiles’ face to support his weight as he slumped forward. Blood bubbled from his mouth, his eyes wide and unseeing.

“Derek…?!” Stiles slid a hand up Derek’s flank, then wrapped his arm around the alpha’s back, fingertips inching across the expanse of muscle until he found the shaft buried deep between the wolf’s ribs. “Shit, Derek!”

Another bolt singing through the night and another jerk from Derek when he recoiled from the blow. Two more bolts, then three more. With each shot, Derek trembled above Stiles, the blood dripping from his lips to stain Stiles’ cheek and throat. The crimson glow of his eyes flickered precariously with each progressive shot.

“Derek…?”

The hunters’ boots crunched through dead leaves and twigs as they approached, their laughter low and sinister.

“Stiles…” Derek managed, his voice rough and choked. His eyes, no longer alpha red, reduced to their jewel-like hue, were glassy, open wounds, bleeding more freely than the impalements in his back. Stiles brought a shaking hand to his cheek, traced the line of his stubble. “Stiles, I—” His words faded into a choked groan when a boot shoved him from his place hovering over Stiles. Lying nearly limp beside him, Derek reached a bloody hand to Stiles.

Before Stiles’ own hand could meet Derek’s, he was yanked away.

“Derek!”

The chain of the steel-jaw trap clanked loudly in the night, Stiles helpless with his ankle in its grip. Leaves and sticks scraped and scratched his flesh as he was dragged, but he twisted and fought and screamed. His fingers dug and clawed at the ground against the force pulling him away, against the hunters retching him from Derek’s side. It didn’t matter that the teeth of the trap dug further into his flesh, that it shredded him with each twist and turn of his weight.

A hunter stood over Derek’s prone form, a handgun leveled with the alpha.

“No, please, no,” Stiles sobbed, still reaching for Derek. “Please, don’t. Whatever you do, don’t. Please. Please…”

Derek’s eyes never left Stiles.

“Derek, please. God, I’ll do anything. Just. Please, please don’t.”

They were shadows in the dark now, Derek and the hunter looming over him. But Stiles could see their outlines, silhouettes in the faint moonlight.

When the gun fired, Stiles screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles wakes in chains.

Stiles sucked a deep breath, expanding his aching chest. His eyes snapped open, steam-white. Auras pulsed and hummed around him, making glowing specters and ghostly shapes of the world. It told him more than his human eyes ever could.

A soft greenish hue stood sentinel outside the cell in which he was held; the bars of his prison a cold black against the wisps and echoes of life. Beyond that, two auras he recognized—the bleached lavender of Erica and the muted gold of Boyd—were suspended on the opposite side of the room. Flares of white electricity sparked and crackled against them, through them, rushing the outlines of their auras, and their screams and whimpers muffled by apparent gags.

Stiles snarled and threw himself into his Spark. He expected warmth to flood him, for his magic to tingle and pop through his limbs. It was a familiar and fast-loved sensation, one that meant he was more than a puny human, one that meant he could finally _finally_ help his friends with more than a baseball bat and quick wit.

Take out the guard, neutralize the electrical current holding Boyd and Erica, neutralize artillery while the wolves handled the people, bust a lock or two, and contact Scott to come get them. Easy.

Because Derek was…Derek was…

But the rush never came. Instead, his blood went distinctly cold and his body stiffened against his will, muscles convulsing as if shocked. It _hurt._ He was left panting and disoriented, like he’d been hit in the temple. He tried to sit up, but his wrists were shackled together. When he scrabbled his feet against the concrete, a bolt of pain shot up his leg and nearly blinded him.

His foot. The trap.

He looked down at his mangled ankle, could see how twisted and shredded it was where his own aura thinned out. He gagged.

“Easy, kid,” a quiet viridian hue—the guard—said. The man’s voice was rough, older. An assault rifle rested across his lap. “Your tricks won’t work, and you’ll only hurt yourself more trying.”

Stiles blinked his vision back to normal, and everything came into stark focus.

Erica and Boyd were bound within sight, and their wounds weren’t healing. The dark stains on Erica’s clothes were slowly growing. She whimpered while Boyd growled, struggled less where Boyd jerked and yanked at his bonds. He’d have been foaming had it not been for the tape over his mouth.

And yes, the guard sitting so casually outside Stiles’ cell was an older guy—maybe his dad’s age and a hell of a lot rougher around the edged. His neat beard had too much silver to be salt-and-pepper, but his hair was dark. Despite his age, his shoulders were broad, his muscles densely packed, and the weapon across his thighs seemed an extension of himself instead of a tool.

Stiles managed to keep his voice steady when he asked, “What do you want with us?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” the man asked. “Predator and prey, boy. It’s a shame you got yourself mixed up with these animals. You’re pretty talented.”

_Fucking hunters._

“Talented,” Stiles said flatly.

The man nodded with a one-shoulder shrug. “Never had to use those shackles on an emissary before, but I suppose there’s a first time for everything.”

Brow furrowed, Stiles dropped his gaze to the metal binding his wrists, and he clenched his jaw when he recognized the runes and sigils engraved into the metal. Neutralizers, suppressors, repressors. They muted his magic.

“You think these will keep me quiet?” Stiles sneered. “Do you have any idea what pack you’ve decided to fuck with?”

“Kept you down so far,” the man said. “And if you get rowdy—” The weapon clacked in his hands as he whipped it between the bars to jab Stiles’ injured foot with the butt of the shoulder rest.

Stiles’ sudden yelp quickly dissolved into sobs. He tried to drag himself out of the man’s reach, but the cell was simply too small. The weapon hovered threateningly over his wounded foot, ready to strike again.

He gulped breath after breath of air to quell the twisting of his stomach and watched the weapon wearily. Before he could think better of it, the lunged for the gun, grappling for it with his shackled hands.

The man sighed, annoyed, and easily yanked it from Stiles’ grasp. With a snap of his wrist, the same flat edge that left him screaming struck the side of his face and left him reeling.

Blood, sticky and warm, trickled down Stiles’ face.

Pushing himself to his feet, the man’s wizened eyes appraised Stiles’ prone form. “Look, magic or not, you’re human. You don’t have to go down with these animals, alright? So, just…keep your head down and behave, and you might just make it out of this alive, okay?”

“Fuck you,” Stiles spat.

The man shook his head and rolled his eyes. “You’re clever. You’ll figure it out eventually.” And it was so dismissive, so patronizing, Stiles wanted to scream. But the man left before Stiles could get another word.

Alone, Stiles sighed, then looked over to Boyd and Erica.

While their new captor was certainly more able-bodied than Gerard, their imprisonment was too familiar. It left a bitter taste in Stiles’ mouth. He was beaten and bloodied, his wolves strung up and sizzling. All to get at Derek.

Oh, God. _Derek._

Stiles’ eyes burned.

This was never supposed to happen. Stiles agreed to training, had thrown himself whole-heartedly into it so this never happened again. Human, he’d been a strategist at best, a liability at worst. But as a power-wielding emissary, he’d never hinder the pack again. Except he did. And probably always would.

He was the emissary. He was supposed to protect his pack, his alpha.

But he was also supposed to know their enemies. He was supposed to bond with his alpha. He was supposed to do so many things he just…hadn’t. Oversight, underestimation, overconfident, underprepared.

He fucked up.

If only he’d bonded with Derek.

If only he’d done better research.

If only he’d been more experienced.

He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, felt the metal’s energy tremble around his chained wrists in resistance when he tried to reach his Spark. He could feel it, deep within him—his magic, his power—but he was barred from it as surely as he was barred from reaching Boyd and Erica. It responded to his need anyway, mournful and full of rage, thrashing violently against the cage of muting runes.

He’d already lost his alpha.

And now he’d lose his betas.

“I’m sorry,” he said, dropping his hands to find Boyd and Erica across the room. “I’m so sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nine days before Stiles fucked up, he and Derek talk.

“What’s the matter?”

Stiles flinched before turning around from the loft’s large windows. He found Derek standing in the middle of the concrete living space amid his sparse furniture, hands shoved casually into the pockets of his jacket.

“Nothing,” Stiles lied.

It was nine days before he’d realize he fucked up.

Derek arched an eyebrow, all skeptical and judgmental, before resigning himself to Stiles’ deception. He shrugged off his jacket and draped it over the arm of the couch before going into the kitchen.

Each familiar clank and clatter of Derek making tea chipped Stiles’ resolution. Cracks fissured through his will, allowing his self-doubt to seep deep in his bones and leave his joints aching in his silence. Derek was in the kitchen making tea, overlooking Stiles’ blatant lie despite how often he’d been lied to in the past, despite how often he’d been used by the people he trusted. Stiles took a shuddering breath, then blurted, “Deaton thinks we should bond.”

The kitchen went silent, though the water rumbled in its kettle.

How Derek froze was so quick, such a knee-jerk reaction, he almost made it seem like an intentional pause. Almost. Stiles knew Derek far too well to be fooled.

“I was wondering when he’d suggest it,” Derek said, just loud enough for Stiles to hear. He took the kettle from the stove when it whistled.

Stiles quickly walked into the kitchen and found Derek pouring steaming water into a pair of mugs. He hoisted himself onto the edge of the counter, ignoring the flash of habitual disapproval in the alpha’s eyes. “Is it normal?” he asked, lightly swinging his legs. “Like, is it typical practice for emissaries to bond with their alphas? He says it is. But as much as Deaton’s training as helped me, I still don’t entirely trust the guy, and I don’t want to, like, fuck yo—anything. Fuck anything up.”

Derek quietly watched the steeping tea, but Stiles could practically see him thinking, his jaw tightening ever so slightly. “How do you feel about it?” he asked after what felt like a lifetime later.

“What do you mean?”

“How do you feel about bonding? I assume Deaton explained it to you. Pros and cons, maybe an overview of the process.” He pulled the teabags from the mugs, then added two tablespoons of clover honey to one of them before grabbing it to press into Stiles’ hand. The second mug he left on the counter.

Warm lemon ginger wafted from the rim, tinged with the spicy-sweet honey—Stiles’ favorite—and he held it close to his face, cradled in his hands despite the heat. “Well, yeah,” Stiles muttered. “It seems beneficial enough, I guess. Intense, for sure. Maybe a little painful.” He shrugged. “But I’m still training—I’m a fraction of the emissary your pack actually needs, and, like…” He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck with a tea-warm fingers. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking. What’s the werewolf side of this? What’s the socially acceptable and expected practice here?”

Derek pursed his lips, brows pinching to shadow his iridescent eyes.

A year or two prior, Stiles would have thought he was glowering. He wouldn’t have noticed the subtle plushness of Derek’s pout, of the tension his jaw was lacking; but facing death a time or two, and falling into a familiar push-and-pull, Stiles became fluent in the unspoken nuances of Derek Hale. Even without heightened senses to read chemosignals or hear a heartbeat, Stiles typically read the alpha better than his own betas did. He blew lightly on his tea before taking a sip, patient for the werewolf to choose his words.

“My mother never bonded with her emissary,” Derek said after a moment or two, watching his cooling tea. “And she was a full-shifting alpha, powerful and well-respected. The benefits for her were few, and the cost much more inconvenient, so she forewent the ritual.” He pushed himself from where he’d been leaning against the counter and met Stiles’ gaze. “If you’re a fraction of an emissary this pack needs, I’m even less-so of an alpha.”

“Derek, that’s not—”

“ _Laura_ was supposed to be the alpha,” he said, and the interruption silenced Stiles. “She _was_ , after our mother died. Until Peter killed her.” He dropped his gaze, then folded his arms across his chest. “When I took Peter’s power and started building my pack, I never thought my Bite wouldn’t take. Obviously not everyone survives the Bite, but I didn’t think _my_ Bite would warp. I didn’t think something like a kanima would come up. And because I was never supposed to be an alpha, I never considered the ripple-effect of being a Hale alpha or what sort of attention it would draw. I never thought the Alpha Pack would seek me out. There were… _a lot_ of things I didn’t think of.”

Stiles frowned and set his mug on the countertop beside his thigh.

Derek played close to the vest, and buried what made him human beneath layers of severe expressions, harsh words, and even harsher actions. But maybe being his emissary meant something to the alpha, meant something Stiles couldn’t entirely fathom, enough to allow the walls to come down.

Stiles wrapped his warm hand around Derek’s wrist, and pulled the alpha’s arms from their defensive position across his chest. When they dropped with little resistance, he pulled again, and Derek shifted the half-step closer into the space between Stiles’ knees. But Derek still wouldn’t meet his gaze. So Stiles cupped his jaw with a soft, “Hey.”

Derek glanced up, albeit reluctantly.

“You’re doing the best you can as an alpha, and I’m doing the best I can as your emissary,” Stiles said, and offered a small smile. “Neither of us were really prepared for our roles, but we’re managing, right?” He pressed his ankles in the backs of Derek’s thighs to bring him closer; he knew he won when the alpha sighed and leaned in to press his nose to his temple.

It was a weird sort of intimacy between them, something wholly different from anything Stiles really comprehended or expected. It wasn’t quite romantic, and it wasn’t quite platonic. It wasn’t quite human, and it wasn’t quite animal. But like everything between he and Derek—from enemies, to allies, to maybe friends—it fell somewhere in between.

Breathing deep, Derek said, “I guess so.”

Stiles hummed. “So this bonding thing…?”

“I’m not the alpha my mother was,” Derek muttered, his back stiffening. But he continued before Stiles could chastise him for self-deprecation. “I don’t have the luxury of turning down the benefits of bonding.”

“Don’t be a martyr,” Stiles said softly. He pressed a hand to the back of Derek’s neck, and scratched through the short hair at the base of his skull. He felt the tension bleed from his shoulders. Even if they didn’t bond through ritual, _something_ was between them for Stiles to have this sort of effect on Derek.

“It would be for the good of the pack.”

“Yeah, well, from what Deaton says, bonding is an all or nothing sort of deal. A forever sort of deal—until one of us dies, which would be horrible for the other.”

Derek huffed, and leaned into Stiles a bit more, tucking his face against the side of his throat. His wrists pressed against the outside of Stiles’ thighs as he moved his hands to bracket him where he sat on the counter. “I’m aware of how a bonding works, Stiles.”

“Then I’m sure you’re also aware of how much you’ve been magicked within the last few years,” Stiles stated not unkindly. When Derek bristled, Stiles redoubled his efforts to soothe him. “I’m not a Darach out to jump your bones, but I’m inexperienced at best. Outright ignorant, in fact. How would you feel about waiting?”

“…you’re not opposed?” And the surprise in the rumble of his voice made Stiles smirk.

“Of being bound to you until the day I die? Nah, not really.”

Derek pulled back just far enough to find Stiles’ gaze with wide, disbelieving eyes. “You’re not lying.”

Stiles chuckled then, and swallowed the urge to kiss Derek. Because as close as they were, as weird as whatever this was between them, they weren’t _that_. Where Stiles could just run his hand down Derek’s arm in front of the pack, or kiss him until he stopped worrying, or comb his fingers through his hair until he fell asleep. They’d probably never be _that_. “I told you I’d be your emissary. I meant it. Stilinski men don’t half-ass things, dude. Besides, it’s—” _For you_ , he wanted to say. But instead, he swallowed, and said, “It’s for the pack.”

Whatever it was, his words or his scent or his steady heartbeat, Derek was satisfied with Stiles’ answer. He nodded, and when he sighed, some more of the tightness perpetually wound in his shoulders ebbed. “Alright. That…works. We’ll wait, then, until you feel more confident with your training.”

Grinning, Stiles said, “Cool.”

Derek nodded again, then completely removed himself from Stiles. The warm space he’d occupied so close was suddenly cold, and Stiles tucked his hands into the sleeves of his hoodie to stave off an involuntary shiver.  Stiles watched Derek grab his own mug of tea—some black rose something or other that tasted like soap to Stiles—and drink deeply. “So,” he asked, once he swallowed. “Anything new about the hunters coming up from the south?”

“Still working on it,” Stiles said, taking his mug of lemon ginger. The ceramic wasn’t as warm as before, and certainly not as warm as Derek’s skin beneath his hands. “Dad requested some reports from a few other departments, so we’re just waiting on that. But hunters are hunters. We’ve dealt with them before, we’ll deal with them again. They may just be passing through.”

The alpha hummed in agreement. “I’ve been blindsided too many times,” he said softly. “I can’t let it happen again.”

“I know,” Stiles said. “I’ve got this covered. Trust me, Der.”

With a quirk of a smile, Derek said, “I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles' captor tries to get information out of him.

Metal clanging against metal startled Stiles from a fitful state of semi-consciousness. He was in too much pain to sleep, too terrified to let his eyes droop closed for more than a few moments, but he was too exhausted not to. Jostling his foot made him whimper, but he quickly masked his weakness behind a clenched jaw and wriggled into something close to sitting upright.

The guard—the same older man from before—hit the flat side of a knife again the bars of Stiles’ cell again, and offered a wry smile when his prisoner finally looked at him. “Rise and shine, kiddo.” He tossed a granola bar into the cage,

Stiles easily caught it and immediately began checking the wrapper for tampering.

“Relax,” the man said. “We’re not trying to kill our own. Just eat. I’m sure you’re starving.” He dragged a folding metal chair near Stiles’ cell. His knees touched the bars when he sat down.

After unwrapping the granola bar, Stiles cautiously sniffed it, as if his meager human sense could pick up any obvious poisoning. But everything told Stiles it was an innocent, normal granola bar, so he hesitated half a moment before biting into it. It wasn’t until the hardly-chewed food hit his stomach that his guts painfully twisted. Hunger. Hunger he hadn’t noticed slammed him hard and brought with it a whole new set of concerns.

Dehydration. Calories consumed versus calories burned. Blood sugar. Weakness.

How much control would he have over his Spark if his body thought it was struggling to survive?

Taking another bite of the granola bar, Stiles mindfully chewed slowly. He didn’t have a concept of time—wherever he, Erica, and Boyd were being held had no windows—but it felt like days since last he’d eaten. He didn’t want to overwhelm his suddenly aching stomach, couldn’t risk putting his body through any more trauma with vomiting.

Between one bite and the next, the man said, “So, now that you have something in your system, why don’t you tell me a little bit about your pack?”

Without hesitation, Stiles spat what partially chewed food filled his mouth back into the wrapper. After setting it on the ground, he shoved it towards the bars. He kept his expression blank, made sure not to longingly look at the food he’d rejected, and met the man’s gaze.

“We know you’re the emissary. We know you’re associated with the Hale pack.” Pointing a thumb over his shoulder to the two suspended werewolves, the man said, “We know they’re Hale’s betas. They won’t talk. Some misguided instinct to remain loyal to their alpha.”

Gerard’s words echoed in Stiles’ mind.

_You paint a very vivid picture, Mr. Stilinski. Let me paint one of my own. Scott McCall finds his best friend beaten and bloody to a pulp. How does that sound, now?”_

He swallowed thickly.

“Help us fill in some blanks, and we might let you go,” the man said.

“Pass,” Stiles said.

The man heaved a sigh, his shoulders moving dramatically. He raised his hand and twirled his wrist. With his signal, the currents pulsing through Erica and Boyd doubled, their bodies convulsing and their screams muffled behind their gags. Erica broke into sobs. Boyd’s breath was wet and ragged. They thrashed and twitched and yowled.

Stiles watched his wolves’ agony grimly, lips pressed in a firm line. But he didn’t look away, wouldn’t buckle beneath the pain of watching them suffer. No, Boyd and Erica were strong, and had suffered so much worse. Shocking them wouldn’t break them, and it wouldn’t break Stiles.

With a chuckle, the man waved his hand, and the current quieted—still pulsing, burning, shocking, but no worse than when Stiles had first woken up in his cell. “You’re a bit cold for an emissary,” the man remarked. “Letting your betas suffer like that. You’re…surprising.”

“Thanks,” Stiles said numbly. Erica’s make up was smeared with her tears, and Boyd’s skin was slick with sweat. “Are you done yet?”

“No,” the man said. “We’ll just have to get a bit more creative with trying to get you to talk.”

“What do you even want with us?” Stiles asked, turning his gaze to his captor. “What do you hope to achieve keeping us here, torturing us? You’ve already killed—” _Derek_. He stopped and blinked the burning from his eyes, willed his voice steady. “You’ve already killed the alpha. What’s a pack without an alpha?”

“Vermin,” the man said, his lips pulling into a smirk. “In need of extermination.” He stood up and stretched, arms reaching high above his head. “It’s the Nematon we’re interested in,” he groaned, and his back popped. “Werewolves rarely allow territories to overlap so closely, so we want to know what a Hale alpha and a True Alpha have to hide, what’s so worth them working together to protect. Pretty sure it’s the Nematon. Beacon Hills is a small town, but weird shit happens here all the time. The death toll over the last ten years is astronomical relative to the town’s size. So much is ‘unexplained’ or ‘unsolved.’ We know you’re at the core of it. You and your pack.” He shrugged, then collected Stiles’ discarded food. “We’re just doing our job, kid. You can either help us, or go down with the beasts. It’s your choice.” The man gestured to Stiles’ mangled foot. “That looks like it’s getting infected. You might want to make your decision fast.”

Stiles glanced to his aching ankle. He could hardly feel his foot. Distracted as he was by Boyd and Erica, by his interrogation, by the possibility of food, the shooting pains lining his shin and calf had faded. Looking at his injury now brought all the ignored discomfort to the forefront of his mind, and he bit his lip to quiet a whimper.

It hurt. He was still bleeding. Muck and leaves and clotted blood, but even moving his leg at the knee was too much. The limb seemed to hang limply from his hip, and Stiles struggled to disconnect himself from the injury.

“You’re gonna let me lose my foot?” he asked, shaky.

“Are you gonna let yourself lose your foot?” the man retorted. “Help us out. Give us _something_. And we’ll help you out, give _you_ something. See how it works?”

Pressing his hands against the concrete floor of his cell, Stiles pushed and shifted and tenderly moved his leg, hissing between clenched teeth when his ankle jostled. “Scott will find me,” he was saying before he could stop himself. “Scott will follow my scent, their scent.” He jutted his chin towards Erica and Boyd. “He’ll find us, and he’ll destroy you and your entire operation.”

“Will he, now?” the man said, and he grinned. Like Stiles was a child telling a wild, imaginative tale. It was too placating, and too fatherly.

“Oh, he will,” Stiles insisted. “And I’m gonna love every minute of him ripping you apart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek voices concerns with Stiles' plan.

Derek was glowering, and had been for the last ten minutes, practically willing the paperwork in front of him to combust with his displeasure.

Stiles sighed and looked skyward to the loft’s absent ceiling melodramatically. “What?” he asked for what felt like the hundredth time.

It was five days before Stiles would realize he’d fucked up.

Derek just shook his head and continued glaring daggers at the document-covered table.

“Okay, seriously, Derek? You need to tell me what’s wrong, because, as an emissary, I can’t abide by my alpha—” And the tension in Derek’s jaw ebbed with the address, which made Stiles huff. “—being all pissed off when I’ve presented him with a perfectly sound plan of action.”

“Your alpha,” Derek muttered, though his gaze softened minutely.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, a gentle challenge in his voice. “My alpha.”

Scott cleared his throat.

Fuck. Stiles let his…whatever, for Derek get away from him.

“Thoughts, Scotty?” Stiles said, whirling around to face the other alpha. He plastered a smirk to his face, questioning, challenging, hoping beyond hope that his bro wouldn’t make things any weirder than they already were.

“About your plan?” Scott asked, and how his cheeks colored made Stiles’ own ruddy flush come to life. Shit.

Scott knew. He had to know. He knew Stiles so well, he’d have to be seriously dense not to see it, not to sense it. And if Scott knew, Derek knew. Because Derek was the more skilled werewolf. Shit. Shit shit shit.

“Yeah, the plan.”

“I think it’s solid.” Scott shrugged, then looked to Derek. “It’s just another batch of hunters. We corner them on the full moon, Stiles talks them down as emissary, and we chase them off if they don’t comply.”

Stiles nodded. “Low numbers, few arms from what the authorities could gather. We’ll have the lunar cycle on our side, and the home field advantage. It’s…pretty standard, all things considered. I mean, damn, even before we got our shit together, we were a force for the Argents to reckon with. What are these people compared to the Argents?”

“Unknown,” Derek said.

Waving his hand to indicate the copious amounts of intelligence he’d gathered, Stiles said, “How can you even say that when your table is literally covered from end to end with information on these people?”

Derek waited a beat, then two, and just before Stiles began to assume he’d fallen into another lapse of irritated silence, he said, “The Argents had a reputation. They were well-known and well-respected. Still are. These hunters…either they’re so new or so bad there’s no need for them to be known, or they’re so deadly and efficient, there’s no one left to speak to it.”

Stiles glanced worriedly to Scott, who straightened his back and folded his arms across his chest.

“I’m concerned about the latter,” Derek added. Then he looked to Stiles and Scott expectantly, bright eyes flicking between them before settling on Stiles. Stiles, his emissary. Stiles, the one with the plan. Stiles, who he was counting on to support him in his caution.

“No witnesses,” Scott murmured.

“But that’s not how hunters work,” Stiles said, absently pressing the side of his thumb to his mouth. He’d already chewed his lips near to raw while researching, so the salt of his skin burned, but it kept him focused. “There’s a network, a code. Hunters know other hunters, have certain hunters handle certain things. Like…like the Argents. Silver, in French. Known to be such good werewolf hunters, people thought silver was a werewolf’s weakness. It’s not…this isn’t…” He sighed. “I think you’re looking into this too far, Derek.”

“Am I?” the alpha— _his_ alpha—asked, raising his eyebrows expectantly. “I mean, I know you’re an emissary, so you know everything now, right? You have all the answers, all the training, all the experience, because you’re an emissary. You can just toss some bones into a wooden bowl and _know_ how things will turn out. Or is it because you think you’re clever and you’re used to feeling like the smartest person in the room?” Derek’s claws popped with a snick, and he raked them across the top of the table, paper tearing and fluttering and flying with the sudden violence.

Scott took a few steps towards Stiles and grabbed his wrist, ready to yank him out of the way if Derek’s aggression were to escalate further.

But Stiles wasn’t scared, not for his safety, not like that. Derek would never hurt him, but this…this wasn’t normal. This wasn’t Derek. So fear crept into the space between his ribs for a completely different reason. But he kept his mouth shut and clenched his jaw, ready to wait the alpha out. He clutched Scott’s wrist and held him fast, a quick squeeze telling him to keep back.

Derek said, “I could certainly take this _quality_ recognizance and your remarkable wisdom and place the fate of my pack in your clearly qualified hands.” Eyes flashing crimson, he continued, “It’s not like I was raised in a respected and established pack and was taught the ways and dangers of hunters. It’s not like I have intimate knowledge of how badly or quickly things could go wrong. It’s not like I’ve underestimated or trusted and have gotten people killed.” His breath came harsh, small growls rumbling from his chest on the exhale. He grit his teeth, his fangs having descended sometime during his tirade, and dropped his angry gaze to the chaotic tabletop.

Stiles felt his the thrum of his fluttering pulse hammer Scott’s grip on him, but patted Scott’s wrist and forced his voice light and conversational. “Scott, Derek and I should probably iron out some kinks with this before we make any decisions. I’ll call you once we come up with something, okay?”

Scott’s mouth, pressed into a grim line, twitched skeptically, but Stiles just raised his brows and pursed his lips. _Go. I’ve got this._

“Yeah,” Scott said, slow and unsure. “Sure. Call me later.”

Stiles nodded, then turned his attention back to Derek. He didn’t make a move until the loft door slammed with Scott’s departure.

“Stiles, I—”

“What the fuck was that?”

Derek flinched slightly, then let his shoulders sag. “I don’t know.”

Approaching the alpha with confident, angry steps, Stiles rounded the table until he could lean back against its edge with only sparse inches between him and Derek. Folding his arms across his chest, he nudged Derek with his elbow. When Derek shifted away, Stiles sighed and grabbed him bodily to guide him closer. “What’s going on with you?”

Derek shrugged him off and stepped away from the table. Stiles tried not to let the space between them wound him. He’d gotten so used to the weird closeness, the intimacy, that it wasn’t weird anymore; he expected it, wanted it. And it hurt when Derek didn’t seem to want the same.

“Derek?”

“Something doesn’t feel right,” he huffed, and he sounded tired.

“Tell me,” Stiles said, gentling his voice. He paused, then asked, “Is it me? Are you having second thoughts about me being emissary?”

“No,” Derek said quickly, appalled. “God, no. Why would you think that?”

Stiles shrugged. “Just a stab in the dark. It’s not like you’re giving me anything right now.”

Shaking his head, Derek said, “It’s not you. And it’s not you being my emissary. It’s…” He stopped, and furrowed his brow. Considering. Choosing his words. “My wolf,” he said, finally. “It’s…unsettled. Instinct. I can’t…This just doesn’t feel right.”

“What doesn’t?”

“Your plan.”

Stiles nodded and tried not to be dismissive. He didn’t have animal intuition, didn’t have another side of himself he had learned to heed, not the way Derek and Scott did. Not the way werewolves did. Yeah, he had his Spark, his newfound and fast-honing magic, but it wasn’t the same. “Okay,” he said. “What about it isn’t sitting right with your wolf?”

“All of it,” Derek said, almost whined. He sounded frustrated, exhausted.

Huffing a soft laugh, Stiles pushed himself from the table and tried again to close the distance between he and Derek. This time, the wolf didn’t retreat.

“It seems too easy,” the alpha said when Stiles wrapped his long fingers around his wrist.

There, Stiles could feel Derek’s pulse pounding, and it brought every other indication Derek was giving into sharp focus. The rapid and shallow rise and fall of his chest, how his eyes had a far away, wild glint to them, how he was just a touch paler than normal.

He was scared.

“Hey,” Stiles murmured, stepping closer into Derek’s space. “What are you so worked up for? We’ve done this dozens of times. We have defending our territory almost down to a science, artful in its seamless execution. You’ve trained your betas to function with you as a cohesive, single-minded unit, trained Scott to work with you in tandem. And you’ve got me.” He slid his hand up Derek’s arm, marveled at the tense muscle quivering beneath his fingertips, until he reached the wolf’s elbow. He pressed gentle pressure into the joint, and Derek went pliant, leaning into him almost bonelessly. Stiles caught him easily, expected it, and smirked to himself when Derek’s uneasy breathing ghosted hot along the skin of his neck. “It’ll be okay,” he soothed. “I promise.”

“We need to bond,” Derek pleaded softly.

“I know,” Stiles said. “I’m working on it.”

“How much longer?”

Stiles stiffened, and Derek stiffened in response.

“Sorry,” the wolf said quickly. “Forget I asked. I, um. Yeah, I’m sorry.”

Shaking his head, Stiles tightened his grip before Derek could try to pull away. “It’s fine. I know it’s important. I’m trying, okay? I swear, I am. I just don’t want to fuck it up, alright? But I’m working on it.”

“Right.”

“I’ve gotten really good with offensive magic,” Stiles offered. “So even without the bond, I’ll be good back up.” He dropped his head and pressed his nose against Derek’s shoulder. “In the meantime,” he muttered against the fabric of Derek’s shirt, “let’s figure out a way to make your wolf alright with this.”

Derek didn’t answer, but he nuzzled against Stiles’ neck a little more.

“Derek.” Stiles injected a note of seriousness into his tone, an edge that Derek couldn’t dismiss as placation or simple comfort.

The alpha hummed an acknowledgement and pulled away enough to meet Stiles’ gaze. He looked calmer, more like himself.

“This isn’t going to be like the Argents,” Stiles said. “We know they’re coming. We know what they’re packing. Your pack knows. Your pack is trained. You’re not alone this time. Okay? You’re not facing this alone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles cracks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WARNING*: This chapter has a little bit of an implied non-con possibility. Nothing happens, but Stiles' captor implies sexual torture is a possibility to get him to talk.

When the man returned to Stiles’ cell what felt like several hours later, he spun a key ring idly around his index finger. Across his back and held in place with a strap was his assault rifle, the one he’d not only so effortlessly kept from Stiles’ grasp, but had also easily used to incapacitate Stiles. He met the gaze of his prisoner, and his smile was gentle, almost sincere. “How’s the foot, kid?”

Propped against the wall of his cell, Stiles watched him wearily, eyes heavy and burning with exhaustion, with tears he refused to shed whenever his constitution cracked. His clothes stuck to him fast with a thin sheen of sweat, and he was _exhausted_. He swallowed in an attempt to rewet his throat—when was the last time he’d had water?—and mustered up what he could of a smirk. Despite how he had near constant shooting pain up the length of his leg, ending in an ache somewhere in his hip, despite how the map of his veins was red-tinged around his ankle, he said, “Never better.”

“Good thing,” the man said, “because you look like death warmed over.” He fingered through the keys and put one in the lock. How the rusty metal whined pierced Stiles’ skull, and he winced against the sound, but the man didn’t seem to notice or care. He opened the cell and strode inside, grabbing Stiles by the elbow and yanking him to stand.

Stiles swayed when his blood rushed, stumbled when he tried to favor his injured, aching leg, choked on a breath when he tried to swallow down a sob. He whimpered and tried to pull away from the vice-like grip on his arm, calloused fingers sure to leave bruises in their wake.

“Hey, hey,” the man said, his voice warm. It was a stark contrast to how he bodily dragged Stiles out of his cell. He shushed Stiles, but didn’t let him escape, didn’t give him the chance to regain his balance or to keep his weight off his injury. “Keep it together. Stone cold when your betas suffer, but quick to cry when it’s your turn? Some emissary.” He chuckled. “Come on. We’ve got something special for you.”

Falling heavily against the man’s grip, Stiles saw Erica and Boyd from the corner of his eye, saw them redouble their efforts against their bonds, screaming behind their gags. Their eyes flashed amber, wide and wild and terrified—Erica crying again, Boyd nearly the same. The electricity crackled and sparked through them, making them twitch and spasm, but they watched Stiles, heedless to the current running through them.

Seeing their fear made Stiles feel his own.

He twisted against the man’s hold, shoved at him with his bound hands, and threw himself into the magic the shackles kept him from. His eyes smoked over, a snarl curling his lip as auras replaced outlines and the play of light and shadow.

But before he could become too much of a threat, before he could cause too much damage or make too much trouble, the man threw him hard onto the concrete. From there, the blows to his ribs, to his arms, to his leg came in quick succession. The man kicked and kicked and kicked and something cracked in Stiles’ chest right around the time his mouth started filling with blood. He spat, he tried to protect himself, tried to curl up and save himself some of the pain, but none of it helped. Nothing helped. And the blows kept coming.

Until they didn’t.

“You done?” the man asked, out of breath. As if Stiles had been the one doing the wailing instead of being wailed on.

Stiles groaned, his breathing wet and ragged. His ears rang, the muffled screams of his betas a familiar sound that somehow pierced the veil of his disorientation. But his grip on what little of his Spark he could reach remained, and he stared menacingly through the pain.

“Good,” the man said, and hauled Stiles up once more.

He dragged him out of the room where Boyd and Erica were kept and down a hallway. The man didn’t give Stiles the luxury of limping, didn’t give him the slack needed to somehow move with what could very well be a shattered ankle, but each time his leg bucked beneath him, the man just took Stiles’ weight and pressed onward.

To an interrogation room, or so Stiles thought.

It wasn’t like the one at the sheriff’s station; the one with blank walls, empty, save for the table and chairs, the rungs where handcuffs were locked. No, this looked more like a storage closet that had a wall knocked out at some point, where pipes were exposed and rats skittered in dark corners. It wasn’t any interrogation room Stiles had ever seen, but he knew why he was there, why the man looped the chain between his shackles through an S hook that hung from the vertical pipe. Hanging there, Stiles was just high enough to not be able to sit, but low enough that his one good leg would quickly get exhausted with supporting his weight. He whimpered when his new, fresh wounds were aggravated.

His wounds. Oh, God, his _ankle_.

It would be torture.

He was going to be tortured.

Stiles shook, tremors like a chill rippling through his body and causing his lip to tremble. With his hands above his head, his shoulders and left leg strained to precariously balanced his weight. He was exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and probably feverish. It didn’t take long for panic to start clawing the back of his throat.

“You’re pretty young to be an emissary,” the man said once Stiles was secure in his new bindings. He stepped out of the light of the single bulb hanging from the ceiling and dragged in another folding metal chair. Its legs scraped across the concrete and the sound scraped across Stiles’ frazzled nerves. “What are you, nineteen? Twenty?”

“I’m eighteen,” Stiles said, his voice just as shaky as the rest of him. He licked his lips and tasted copper.

“How long have you been studying magic?”

“Not long,” he admitted quickly. He pulled on his shackles to adjust his weight, to get his good leg under him more securely. “I’m not a fan of the new deck block for this season, but you can always play in a legacy tournament so your cards aren’t obsolete. I mean, I’ve seen decks with only twenty cards, half of them printed in languages other than English.”

“Seems like you’re more willing to talk now that I’ve got you strung up, too,” the man said with an easy chuckle.

Stiles tried to shrug, but his chest hurt. He hissed a breath. “I like to talk, typically. I can talk about almost anything, really. Did you know the first UFO sighting was reported by an Air Force pilot near Mt. Reiner?”

The man laughed again. “You’re cute,” he purred, and his smirk was predatory.

But that single statement rattled Stiles more than anything else had since he’d found himself captured. The _implication_ had bile burning his throat.

Oh, God.

He stood from his chair and forced himself into Stiles’ space. Taller than where Stiles hung, the man leaned close and rested a hand on Stiles’ hip—like Derek had in the past. He huffed a laugh, his breath sticky against Stiles’ neck, then pulled away, but only slightly. “Why don’t you tell me about the Nematon?” the man said, his voice low, gravelly.

Taking a careful breath, Stiles asked, “What do you want to know?”

“It was dormant for a long time, but it’s active now, and quite suddenly. You know anything about that, emissary?” He nudged Stiles’ wounded foot, and smirked when he yelped.

“S-Sacrifices,” Stiles stammered, trying to focus through how his head swam. The pain. God, the pain was enough to spark and darken the edge of his vision.

“Sacrifices?”

“There was a Darach. And an alpha pack. We just got caught in the crossfire.”

“Go on,” the man said.

Stiles took a shuddering breath and glanced skyward, forcing his expression to look resigned, resolved, like he was looking for strength. Instead, he studied the S hook holding his shackles. It supported him well enough, but would it support the force of his thrashing weight? Would the pipe it was attached to? He scrabbled to straighten his back, and felt the pipe creak beneath his weight; he kept his breath ragged and pained to hide the sound.

“A pack of alphas. In order to join, you have to wipe out your pack, including your emissary. One member didn’t kill her emissary. That emissary sought revenge. Their showdown happened in Beacon Hills. Weird weather shit happened, animals went nuts. The Darach, the dark druid, killed a whole bunch of people to recharge the Nematon. Sacrifices. So she could fight the alpha of alphas.”

“The Demon Wolf.”

Stiles nodded. “Deucalion. They fought. They both lost.”

“Interesting,” the man said, thoughtful. He took a few steps back, and Stiles felt like he could breathe again—albeit painfully so. “Now, was that so hard?” he asked.

Chewing his lip, Stiles shook his head.

“So, you gave me something. Now I’ll give you something.”

Stiles swallowed thickly, as the man turned and disappeared from the small room. When he returned a few moments later, it was with a battered leather jacket in hand. Even with his meager human senses, Stiles could smell the blood on it.

He knew that jacket.

He’d worn that jacket on chilly nights.

He’d been pressed close against that jacket to stave off a panic attack.

Derek’s jacket.

“A token,” the man said, tossing it on the ground. It slid across the concrete to stop near where Stiles hung. “To remember your alpha by.” He laughed as he left the room a final time.

Stiles didn’t even hear the door slam. He was too busy staring at the leather at his feet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The hunters find Stiles before the full moon.

Derek’s marginal freak out left Stiles shaken. He’d never seen him so near to coming apart at the seams, so willing and able to succumb to the self-doubt and pure fear bubbling beneath the surface of the alpha’s stern demeanor.

It had taken every ounce of Stiles’ will to not take Derek by the face and press their lips together until Derek’s heart pounded for reasons completely unrelated to encroaching hunters. Despite the alpha’s considerable bulk, Stiles was lanky enough to wrap the werewolf in his arms, to attempt to fill his senses with nothing but _him_ and the promise of whatever protection Stiles had to offer.

He hadn’t, of course. He couldn’t.

Though it felt like they were hurtling headlong towards some sort of precipice, they weren’t there yet. High-running emotions be damned, they simply weren’t there, regardless of how reluctant Derek had been to let Stiles leave that evening.

So Derek’s concern, Derek’s raw and unadulterated trust in Stiles had him out in the preserve, alone. He owed it to Derek, to dot every I and cross every T. He’d promised him everything would be okay, after all.

Sitting on the hood of his Jeep, Stiles chewed the loose marker cap as he made mark after mark on a map of the preserve. Xs and Os, curved arrows, boxes, and colored triangles. Despite how often he rode the bench, Stiles was familiar with Coach Finstock’s playbook, and used similar demarcation to create a visual of their plan for the hunters.

The full moon was three nights away.

It would be three nights until he’d realized he fucked up.

With a sigh, Stiles leapt from the hood and shoved the marker into his pocket. He looked around the clearing where he was parked, watching the sticky mist of a cool and humid day roll through the natural mulch on the ground. The weather was supposed to be pretty consistent for the rest of the week, so the cover could work to their advantage if things escalated with the hunters.

Hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.

Hopefully, Stiles could just talk them down and send them on their way. With Scott and Derek at his back, of course, as the residing alphas of the area.

And if they wanted to make things bloody, well, that’s what this plan was for, after all.

Stiles used his map, complete with his hastily scrawled notes, to navigate away from the Jeep. He wasn’t a navigator by any means, but he needed to familiarize himself with charting his course manually. The light of cell phone screen would give away his position to a hunter, and he couldn’t let himself rely on it. He did, however, check his progress with the GPS of his phone every now again, for accuracy. He marked overlooks and ridges and rock outcroppings as he walked. He marked clearings and patches where the trees were densely packed. He even marked trees that were suitable for climbing.

This was Hale land. Derek grew up here. Derek probably knew everything there was to know about the preserve, but Stiles needed to prove that he was informed, too. He needed to show Derek that he’d thought of everything, that he’d considered every option, and that the rest of the pack was just as knowledgeable as Derek with the lay of the land.

The home field advantage only worked if one knew the field as well as home. Or something like that.

His Jeep was far from sight when the first inkling of _something_ prickled the back of his neck. Stiles stopped, froze, really, like a startled rabbit, his Spark tingling in his fingertips, ready to be called forth. His pulse thundered in his veins, and his magic as primed and ready as a cocked gun.

Which was good, because that was the next sound he heard: the cocking of a weapon.

“Hands where I can see them,” the voice—a man—said from behind him.

With a heavy sigh, Stiles obliged, raising his arms to show his empty hands, save for the map.

“Turn around. Slowly.”

Stiles obeyed, and didn’t mask his surprise when his assailant was around his age. He’d expected a more seasoned hunter, someone with experience and honed skillsets—because you’d need the confidence and knowledge that came with it to prowl a territory shared by a pair of alpha werewolves. But this guy—this kid—was maybe a year younger than him at least. Dark hair, dark eyes, sharp features that reminded him a bit of Jackson. He kept jerking his head to flip his bangs from his face. But the hard set of his furrowed brows just looked wrong once Stiles noticed how his hands trembled against his crossbow. In another life, Stiles probably would have bought him a drink at a bar.

“What’s in your hand?” the guy demanded.

“Shopping list,” Stiles said. Young or not, he wouldn’t give a hunter a scrap of information. Beneath the surface of his skin, his magic crackled like static.

“Ha ha. You’ve got jokes. You think you’re funny.”

“I think I’m adorable,” Stiles said reflexively. “What do you want?”

“What are you doing out here? It’s dangerous to be in the woods alone,” the guy said, and the hard edge in his voice was softening minutely.

Stiles licked his lips. “I grew up around here. I’m pretty familiar with the area.”

“Then why do you have a map?”

“It’s not a—”

“I’ve been following you for a while. Don’t bother trying to lie.”

Rotating his shoulders, Stiles took breath. “Look, man, you’re a hunter. I get it. But there’s no need for trouble between us, okay?”

The guy stiffened and raised his bow a little higher. “You’re a werewolf?”

With a gentle chuckle, Stiles said, “No, but I’m familiar with the local pack. We’re peaceful here. No pack building, no bloodshed. Just a family trying to live. We’re fine with you guys passing through. You won’t have anything to fear from us.”

“We’re not here for the—” but the guy cut himself off and hardened his expression once more. His jaw was set, his dark eyes cold.

“Then what are you here for?”

“It doesn’t matter. What are you to the pack?”

“A friend,” Stiles said. “An ally.” Revealing his role as emissary without the backing of his pack was dangerous, left him vulnerable. “What are you here for? Maybe we can help you.”

“You can’t,” the guy said. “It’s not…” He shook his head, then freed up a hand to brush his hair from his face.

Stiles frowned. This wasn’t right—he didn’t need werewolf senses to tell that the guy was unsettled. “Are you in some sort of trouble?” he asked. He’d take him to Scott if he was. Derek was too distrustful, and rightly so, but hunter or not, if someone was in a dangerous situation and needed help, Stiles had to do what he could. So Scott. Scott would hear him out, Scott would offer to protect him. And after a while, Derek would probably come around.

Fuck. Anything like that would definitely lead to a confrontation, which was what he was trying to avoid.

But was helping a hunter really his business? Should Stiles bother helping someone who would sooner put a bullet through Derek or his best friend than talk things out?

The decision was made for him when an arrow fired from the shadowed tree line behind the guy. Stiles ducked and jerked right, startled when the bolt sailed over his shoulder. Another two followed the first, and Stiles’ body was yanked and pulled by a force—familiar and still mysterious—to avoid each shot.

“Holy shit.”

His Spark, his emissary magic.

He’d been holding it so close to the surface, it came forward without his conscious thought, kept him safe in instinctual ways—yanking him this way and that like a puppet on a string. And right now, it made him a difficult target for the hunters’ arrows.

Three new men emerged from the mist, hidden while Stiles had been focusing on the younger hunter. Heavily armed, with rifles strapped to their backs and handguns at their hips, these newcomers were clearly less willing to talk than the younger one was.

He laughed in the face of their frustration, but when they reached for their holstered firearms, Stiles’ humor fell.

“I don’t think so,” he said. And his vision shifted, honed to the outlines and auras of the things around him. His were the eyes of a Darach—cloudy pale like an oncoming storm. He shot his hands out and snatched the guns from their hunter wielders with an invisible force summoned from deep in his core.

Stiles pulled back his hands, then pushed with his body, calling forth his power to send the three new hunters off their feet. They sailed through the air to land in heavy heaps yards away. He left the younger one alone, for now.

But he raised his weapon at Stiles.

“What the—”

“I’m the local pack’s emissary,” Stiles said easily. His voice rang like a foreign echo in his own ears, but he couldn’t afford to let his guard down, to let his power slip from his control. Not with a crossbow aimed at him. “We don’t want trouble,” he said again. “If you want, we can arrange a meeting and discuss the terms of your—”

The crossbow fired, its bolt piercing the air straight for Stiles’ chest.

His eyes flashed, swirling clouds in his sockets, and the bolt thudded hard against a protective shield of Stiles’ magic, silent, invisible, around him. He made a quick gesture with his hand, and the weapon was yanked from the guy’s grasp, flinging several feet away.

“Get out of here,” Stiles snarled, the words booming in the quiet of the forest, huge and terrifying like the power surging through him.

And the hunter didn’t need to be told twice. Fear made his movements jerky, uncoordinated, but he scrambled away. He left his fellows behind without hesitation.

So much for solidarity.

Maybe they were a band mercenaries, not hunters.

That only made things worse.

Safe, for the time being, Stiles heaved a sigh and the crackling energy arching through his veins quieted. His vision returned to normal, subject to the play of light. While the hunters lay stunned, he grabbed one of the handguns from where his magic had thrown it. Its weight felt good in his hand, heavy and familiar, and he cocked the weapon before approaching the first of the fallen hunters.

He considered shooting him, injuring him just enough to keep him down, keep him out of whatever fight may or may not come with the full moon. A shot in the thigh would do it. Nonlethal, but severe enough. Not so bad that he’d bleed out before getting help.

Instead, Stiles emptied the weapon’s clip into a nearby tree trunk.

He did the same with every remaining firearm, watched as the bark of the tree flung wooden shrapnel through the air, as sap ran from the gougeds like blood from a wound. Once the guns were empty, he carried them to a nearby overlook—as indicated on his map—and tossed them into the ravine. He’d ask his dad to pick up the weapons later. For now, he had to get the hell out of there.

Shaky feet carried him back to his Jeep, but he hardly felt his steps. No, it felt like he was floating, somehow disconnected from the encounter, from the use of his power, from the metal of guns in his hands. Hunters’ guns who’d killed countless supernatural creatures before winding up in Beacon Hills.

He had to tell Scott.

He had to tell Derek.

There wouldn’t be a negotiation. There would only be a fight.

Climbing into the driver’s seat, Stiles drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

He couldn’t tell anyone about the hunters he’d found.

Scott would freak out, chastise him for going off alone when they _knew_ hunters were around. It would get back to Derek, somehow, and Derek was worried enough already. They were prepared for a possible fight—Stiles had an entire plan worked out and checked, double checked, triple checked. They’d be fine.

Of course they’d be fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles is clever, and gets some help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, i'm so so so sorry about the delay in update. life happened and i moved! so i'm finally getting settled into my new house and getting back into the groove of writing. thanks so much for sticking with me through all of this!

Stiles lost time.

Derek was dead and his bloody jacket lay at his feet.

He could feel the warmth of Derek’s neck beneath his palm if he concentrated hard enough, could picture his smirk in his mind’s eye. And every line-skirting touch, every too-long stare felt like a missed opportunity.

He stuttered a self-loathing breath, and though his eyes burned, he didn’t deserve to mourn the loss of what he could have had: the Derek that could have been his.

Derek had deserved so much more than what Stiles had to offer, but Stiles should have offered everything he had anyway. Because Derek deserved that, for someone to offer everything they had, even if it wasn’t enough.

Stiles hadn’t, because he was scared. Scared of fucking up, scared of hurting Derek.

It kept him from so much. It kept him from everything.

When he came back to himself, Stiles’ arms tingled on the verge of numbness and his uninjured leg trembled beneath his weight. He was alone with only his own harsh breaths for company.

But he was alone.

The S hook looped through the links of the chain between his shackles and clanked whenever Stiles moved. But the pipe it was attached to creaked and trembled.

He only hoped he could keep himself quiet when the pain hit.

After taking a deep breath, Stiles closed his eyes. He bolstered his strength, and stood as tall as his weak, uninjured leg allowed and wrapped his hands around the chain between his shackles. He jumped and tucked his knees to his chest.

One of two things would happen:

His wrists or his hands—possibly both—would snap beneath his weight.

The chain or pipe—possibly both—would snap beneath his weight.

Somethings, optional S, would snap.

The pressure shot through his hands, his wrists, but the force focused on the chain. The pipe behind him bent with a groan, and the chain between his shackles snapped free of the hook.

Stiles hit the ground, and the impact rocketed blinding pain up his leg through his injured ankle. He yelped, but quickly bit into the sleeve of his sweater. He whimpered and shook and tears leaked from his tightly shut eyes. He heaved breath after ragged breath, gasping beneath the waves of agony.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, his senses and nerves crackling white-hot, but he lost more time. His stomach knotted and bile burned his throat until he leaned over and wretched. The meager contents of his stomach splattered against the concrete, his weight held above the mess with a trembling forearm.

This close to the floor, the odds and ends of the abandoned warehouse—undoubtedly where he was being kept—came into weak, watery focus. Stiles could just make out rusted bolts and screws, brackets and other bits hastily swept into the corners, out of reach of bound prisoners. Not that werewolves, or any other hunter query, typically resorted to weapons, the hunters had at least put an ounce or two of forethought into using the place.

Maybe they didn’t think Stiles, wounded, weak, human, would be able to somehow get free. They knew he was the Hale emissary, but they didn’t know he was a sheriff’s son. He snatched a nail lodged in a crack in the concrete.

Blood loss, fever, hunger—any number of things could have caused his swimming vision, his trembling hands, the tightness in his chest. _Trauma_ , his brain supplied unhelpfully. _Shock. Grief._

Metal scraped against metal as he forced the rusty nail into the keyhole of his shackles. Though archaic in appearance and design, they functioned like handcuffs. It was difficult to hear the soft click and grind of the lock mechanism while his blood pounded in his ears. It was hard to feel the subtle give and pull of the lock while his hands shook. His Spark thundered in his veins, his magic slamming itself into the barriers that bound it, and it itched maddeningly at the base of his skull.

He released a wet sigh when the first shackle popped open and fell away from his chafed wrist. Stiles’ Spark flared, closer but still out of reach, humming with the anger and grief and utter _madness_ he’d stuffed away in the face of physical pain and the need to escape. Derek’s jacket lay beside him, and he twisted his still-shackled hand in the supple leather as he went to work on the second lock. It steadied him, focused him. It _anchored_ him.

“Well well well,” a rough voice purred.

Stiles snapped his head up from where he’d been staring where the nail was buried in the keyhole and swallowed thickly when the guy—the same guy he’d been dealing with since he woke up—raised an eyebrow.

He stood in the doorway, miles taller and infinitely more terrifying from where Stiles lay on the ground, and folded his arms across his chest. “And here I thought we had an understanding, son,” he said, paternal disappointment dripping from every syllable. The disappointment quickly morphed into seething anger. “But I guess you’re just like every other goddamn brat.” He strode toward Stiles ominously, his boots heavy on the concrete, and all Stiles could think of was how hard the old man could hit. His ribs throbbed with the echo of the memory. “Give ‘em an inch…”

Stiles closed his eyes in anticipation of another beating, but the lock was almost free. He’d found the spring in the mechanism, and all he had to do was press it just right. He kept working as the steps drew closer. A little more. He just needed a little more…

The door slammed open with a bang.

A roar.

A shout.

Stiles opened his eyes just in time to see a lupine face latch down hard where the man’s neck met his shoulder. Blood spurt and poured as he struggled, but clawed hands clutched at his sides and dug into the soft flesh over his kidneys.

The lock clicked open. The second shackle fell away. Stiles’ Spark flared to life, bright, powerful, _hungry_.

The man reached for his belt.

Stiles shot his hand out, and an invisible force clamped the man’s hands to his sides and _crushed_. The weapon—a knife—he’d been fumbling for fell to the ground with a clatter. Bones cracked, but the man’s scream only bubbled where his throat was being torn.

The man sank slowly to his knees, his werewolf attacker going with him. And when he went limp, the wolf stood, mouth and throat covered in blood, shirt and hands stained the same. Electric blue eyes watched Stiles carefully while his monstrous features retreated.

“Peter?” Stiles managed. He pushed himself to sit upright, still clutching Derek’s jacket. He looked between the bloodied, raging werewolf in front of him, and the pool of blood slowly expanding from the dead man’s neck.

“Where’s Derek?” Peter growled, eyes still glowing. His fangs were still descended, crimson and dripping. “Where’s my nephew?” He angrily covered the scarce few feet between them and snatched the jacket from Stiles’ grasp. He brought it to his bloody face, mere inches from the leather, and inhaled deeply, broad chest expanding.

When Peter dropped the jacket back into Stiles’ lap, he cleared his throat. “Derek’s dead,” Stiles said, voice shaking. Things were catching up to him. The shock, the blood loss, whatever fever he had. Relief, he thought, letting everything through.

Peter blinked down at Stiles from where he stood, then shook his head. “He’s not dead.”

“I saw it,” Stiles said, and his eyes burned. “They shot him, and dragged me away from him and—” He started shaking, full-body tremors that had the heels of his shoes scraping against the floor and his hands spasming in Derek’s jacket. His chest was tight, his ribs collapsing in on themselves to tear his aching heart to shreds. His magic hummed just beneath the surface of his skin, undirected but ready, twitchy without a clear purpose or target.

“Stiles. Stiles!”

Stiles didn’t realize he was crying until Peter wiped his face with bloody hands.

“He’s not dead,” Peter repeated, meeting Stiles’ watery gaze steadily. “His betas would have felt it. _I_ would have felt it.”

“But—”

“I felt my sister die in that fire,” the wolf said, and his face was carefully blank. “I knew the exact moment my alpha died.” He took a breath and rotated his shoulders before sitting back on his haunches, close, but not right in Stiles’ space. “Derek’s not dead,” he said. “He’s here. Somewhere. I followed his scent, but found you and his jacket instead.”

“How did you find us?” Stiles asked. He clutched Derek’s jacket like a shield, like a child with a blanket. He didn’t dare hope. Werewolf pack senses aside, Peter was with him, not Scott. And he knew what he saw.

“Lydia contacted me when she realized something would go wrong. Took a while to track you, but Scott and I managed. He and Kira are dealing with the hunters, getting Boyd and Erica out.”

Stiles smirked at that, lips quirking to the side. “And you offered to find Derek, because wherever they’re keeping the alpha, the lead hunter won’t be far. Scott might let them live. You won’t.”

Peter had the decency to look at least slightly offended. “Derek’s my only nephew, Stiles. Surely you understand how desperately I want him safe.”

“It’s okay,” Stiles said. “I want them dead, too.”

After regarding him for a moment, Peter said, “I might just let you do the honors, if you’re so inclined.” He extended Stiles his hand. “Your leg is pretty much useless, but how’s your magic?”

“Better now, without those shackles,” Stiles answered. When he grasped the wolf’s hand, Peter’s veins went dark, and Stiles’ frazzled, firing nerves finally started to settle. They were quiet, the screaming throb of pain dulling significantly. “Holy shit,” he said, a little drunk with relief. “I might just be able to walk if you keep that up.”

“Not in the least,” Peter remarked, ducking under Stiles’ arm once he yanked him to his feet. “But I need you to focus. Can’t do that when you’re suffering.”

Peter’s grip was solid, firm, around Stiles’ waist, his hand tacky with blood. Despite his reservations, Stiles leaned against him with complete trust—the kind where he believed Peter wouldn’t kill him, leave him, or hurt him further.

“You should be able to use your bond to find Derek. In fact, you should have been able to use your bond to tell if he were alive or not,” Peter said. He shouldered most of Stiles’ weight as they left the small room where he’d been held and made their way deeper into the hunter’s compound.

“We never bonded,” Stiles said. The guilt brought fresh bile to burn his throat.

Deaton had explained some of the benefits of the bond—sensing one another, transferring energy to one another—and hobbling along, clinging helplessly to Peter, Stiles knew what a mistake it was to postpone the ritual. Maybe Derek could have been stronger, able to heal faster, had Stiles bonded to him. Maybe Stiles wouldn’t have cracked so easily had he known for sure that Derek was alive.

“Well, that makes this a little harder,” Peter sighed. “Come on. We’ll find him the old fashioned way.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek corners Stiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've pretty much caught up the present and come full-circle, folks. So no more flashback chapters after this. Just straight continuation. Not much more to go until we're finished. Thanks for sticking around!

Sitting at his desk, Stiles typed away at his laptop. Several tabs of hunting, tracking, urban witchcraft, and wound treatment covered the screen. Research. An acoustic playlist crooned softly through the shitty speakers just loud enough to skirt the surface of his thoughts. The sun had long since set, and the screen cast its lonely blue glow across his room.

His Spark crackled at his fingertips despite his willing for it to quiet.

After his run-in with the hunters, Stiles had locked himself up in his room for more research, more preparation, more…everything. He knew the moment he crossed paths with any of the pack, they’d know something had happened, that something was wrong.

Stiles would know just how badly he’d fucked up in only a few hours.

His phone buzzed on the desk beside him, Scott’s name flashing bright and ominous. With a sigh, Stiles silenced the call. The screen showed five ignored texts, and nine ignored calls. He’d dodged and evaded as much as he could, feigning meetings with his father and Deaton to explain his refusal to face any of them. Time was running out to build a story and have enough supplemental work to ease new concerns. Sooner or later, one of the wolves would show up demanding answers.

The window skidded in its tracks as it was yanked open, and Stiles closed his eyes in quiet resignation when heavy boots hit his carpeted floor with a thud.

Sooner, then.

Fine.

He turned just in time to see Derek take a deep breath and stiffen, hands clenching into fists at his sides. The leather of his jacket creaked with his movements, how he tensed, and his eyes were alpha red in the sparse light of Stiles’ room. Derek’s gaze drifted to the where Stiles’ dirty laundry sat piled in a corner—the clothes he’d worn when he’d met the hunters— and took another deep breath.

“What happened?” he asked.

Stiles swallowed and nearly cowed. Instead, he averted his gaze under the guise of looking back at his computer, and asked, “What do you mean?” He knew his heartbeat would give away the lie, knew he had to smell like anxiety and fear and dread. But bravery or courage or strength didn’t come from an absence of fear; it came from perseverance in the face of it. And Derek, pale, anxious with a thundering pulse—if Stiles closed his eyes, he could still feel it beating against his fingertips—was a Derek Stiles never wanted to see again.

The silence behind him was deafening.

Attempting to fill it, Stiles tapped a few keys on his laptop. His mattress groaned when Derek sat down.

“You’re avoiding us,” Derek said. Where Stiles anticipated a reprimand or an accusation, he heard a soft resignation, like a truth that was painful to acknowledge.

“I’m not,” Stiles lied, because it hurt to hear. The weight of Derek’s stare made the space between his shoulder blades itch.

“You’re avoiding _me_.”

“I’m not.”

Derek snorted, unimpressed.

Stiles typed some more, but Derek remained silent. And, well, if Derek wanted to lurk in the shadows of Stiles’ room while he worked, who was Stiles to stop him? He didn’t necessarily mind the company, even if it was strained.

Except it sucked. It was awful. He and Derek were so far beyond this in their…whatever it was they had. It was miserable.

After reading the same line in an article eight times, he sighed and pushed himself away from the desk. He spun to face Derek, who just arched an eyebrow, his expression otherwise blank.

“What are you doing?” Stiles asked, tired, frustrated, his back was against a wall. He didn’t like lying to Derek, but he didn’t like worrying him either. He just…

He just wanted Derek happy.

The realization hit him with the force of a sledge hammer. It was obvious—Derek deserved what life refused to give him, and Stiles wanted the people he cared about content. He tried to watch out for Derek and maintain his trust, to be _worthy_ of whatever Derek gave him. Maybe it had been an instinct or an impulse, something that hadn’t had words to describe it in his brain yet. But once the words were there, however, they stuck.

Stiles wanted Derek happy.

Well, shit.

“I’m trying to be a better alpha,” the wolf answered.

Narrowing his eyes, Stiles tilted his head in confusion. “I know,” he said, carefully. “We’re all trying to be better. I get that.”

“No,” Derek said, and he stood, squaring his shoulders and shoving his hands into his pockets. It reminded Stiles of the Derek he and Scott first met in the woods, the Derek that postured and intimidated and was distrustful. “I’m trying to be a better alpha,” he repeated. “I’m trying to keep faith in my emissary when he’s avoiding and lying to me. I’m trying to trust his judgment, even when my wolf is yowling over how wrong everything feels. I’m trying not to assume things when I find him with a pile of clothes that smell like fear and magic and gunpowder. I’m waiting, giving him the chance to explain himself, because I don’t like the conclusions I’m drawing.”

Stiles swallowed.

“So I’m going to ask you again,” Derek said, his voice intentionally measured. He shifted his feet and rolled his shoulders. “What happened?”

Stiles bit into the side of this thumb to buy himself a few moments, though Derek seemed prepared to wait him out, no matter how long it took. _Better alpha_ , he reminded himself. Right. Stiles took a breath, but didn’t bother standing to meet Derek on even ground. No, Derek was the alpha. Stiles was the emissary. And Stiles was clearly pushing Derek towards a place he didn’t want to go.

“I ran into the hunters the other day,” he said.

Derek’s jaw twitched, but the anger Stiles expected didn’t come. Stiles almost wished it would. It would be so much easier to deal with an angry Derek than this quiet, reserved, controlled Derek.

_Better alpha, my ass. This is just the calm before the storm._

“It…didn’t go as well as I wanted. But no one was hurt.” He stopped and licked his lips before saying, “They know I’m the emissary.”

Dropping his head, Derek heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“What?” Stiles demanded, taking what offense he could. He stood, shooting his chair backwards into his desk with a clank. Anger, he could handle. Not disappointment. “What, Derek?”

“They know you’re my weakness, then,” Derek said, his voice soft.

“Your weakness?”

“Yes, Stiles, my weakness,” Derek snapped. He looked up, eyes ringed with faint red, and suppressed a snarl. But before Stiles to look too far into it, before he could even dare hope Derek might return his feelings, the wolf continued, “Because the easiest way to get to an alpha is through their emissary. The Bond isn’t some big werewolf secret, and we don’t know what they know, so we have to assume they know everything.” He took a breath and began pacing the length of Stiles’ bedroom. There. That was the Derek Stiles knew. Obnoxious, annoying Stiles could always get under Derek’s skin. “You can’t come with us tonight,” he said. “They’ll target you first.”

“We don’t know that,” Stiles said. “I kinda proved myself a force to be reckoned with, truth be told.” And if he smirked a little smugly, he couldn’t really be blamed. Except Derek rounded on him with something akin to horror on his face. Stiles’ smirk fell.

“You used your _magic_?”

“I had to!” Stiles shouted. “They pulled weapons on me!”

“Stiles!”

Clawed hands fisted into the front of his hoodie and yanked hard enough for Stiles to stumble. Derek’s wrecked expression looked torn between wanting to hit him and hug him, but he settled for shaking some sense to him instead. Stiles saw that same expression mere days before, when Derek’s wolf was unsettled. It twisted a knife of anguish through Stiles’ gut just as potently as it had the first time: fear. Damn it, he never wanted to see that look again, and here he was, causing it.

“I already told you: no one got hurt,” Stiles said. He met his alpha’s gaze and wrapped his hands around his wrists. Again, Derek’s pulse pounded beneath his fingertips. “I just…neutralized them and took their guns.”

“They could have taken or killed you,” Derek said. When he wrenched his hands out of Stiles’ hoodie, it looked like it was a mounted effort for him to do so. He took an intentional step backward, as if trying to reestablish some line he’d crossed. Stiles only wanted him closer. “And I never would have known until we—until I—and then you’ve been ignoring my calls and—” He huffed a breath, and forced himself to calm. “You should have told me sooner.”

“I didn’t want to worry you,” Stiles admitted, then shrugged. Though his cheeks warmed, he ignored it. Derek needed his honesty, and Stiles had already denied him it long enough. “It wasn’t a big deal. I handled it.”

“They know what you can do now, and they’ll seek you out,” Derek said. He ran a hand through his hair and turned towards the window. “I have to tell the others the plan has changed. You can’t be out there with us tonight. You already had a confrontation with them, and now they’ll want a fight.”

“All the more reason for me to be there,” Stiles argued. “My magic is badass and I can totally give whatever back up and cover you guys need. Besides, I’ve already gotten a taste of what they can do. You’re going in blind!”

“No, Stiles. It’s too dangerous.” The wolf perched on the windowsill, poised to leave. “Stay here. If we’re not back in two hours, then you can worry.”

“Fuck that, Derek,” Stiles snapped. He was the emissary, Derek was the alpha. They were supposed to be a team. “What’s the point of it all if I’m stuck here like some damsel in a tower?”

“You’re even less useful if you’re dead. Just. Stay. Here.”

Derek disappeared before Stiles could get in another word.

Stiles seethed. He kicked his chair into his desk, scattering odds and ends to clatter to the floor. Where the fuck did Derek get off, telling him what to do, ordering him around? Stiles wasn’t one of his betas, where he could just flash his eyes and growl to get what he wanted. No, Stiles was his emissary, and above that, Stiles was still Stiles. And Stiles didn’t let his friends go into a fight without him.

Fuck this.

He grabbed his wallet and his keys, and stormed out of the house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles' and Peter's search is over.

Stiles got used to the stench of blood.

It covered Peter’s face and hands, his shirt, and Stiles’ clothes. The arm wrapped around Peter’s shoulders tightened with the white-knuckled grip Stiles refused to release on Derek’s jacket. Each hobbling step had his fist twitching in the supple leather.

Peter had said his leg was useless.

Peter was wrong.

“Stop stop stop,” Stiles breathed. He pulled away from Peter and tumbled into the nearest wall. There, he braced his weight with trembling limbs and eased himself to the floor.

“What’s the matter?” Peter asked. His impatience bled into the even keel of his voice and his expression, blood notwithstanding.

Stiles’ leg was beyond useless.

Even with Peter absorbing his pain, it became too much for Stiles to bear. His ankle throbbed in tandem with his pounding heart, each thud a hammer’s blow to the—likely—broken bone, the shredded flesh. He couldn’t put an ounce of weight on it—as if the pain wasn’t enough of a deterrent, it gave out as if the joint were made of jelly—and though Peter helped as much as he could, the rest of Stiles’ human body was exhausted from compensating.

“I—” Stiles swallowed to rewet his throat. “I can’t keep going.”

“You have to,” Peter said simply.

“You don’t understand.” Grabbing the denim at his knee, Stiles yanked the material up to expose his wounded ankle. The red map of his veins was more pronounced, the flesh around the gaping wounds inflamed with infection. It was swollen, oozing, and even to Stiles’ nose, it smelled. “I can’t. Keep. Going.”

Peter didn’t even bother gracing Stiles’ injury with a glance. “You. Have. To. And you will,” he said. “Even if I have to throw you over my shoulder to do it.”

“I’m a liability at this point,” Stiles said. He rested his head against the wall, and it felt cool through his matted, sweaty hair.

“You were a liability the moment you revealed yourself to the hunters.”

“You think I don’t know that?!”

“Not enough to stay out of a fight at your alpha’s discretion.”

Stiles suddenly wanted to cry.

With a sigh, Peter said, “I know you’re sick, but the sooner we get to Derek, the sooner you can start to regain your strength.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bond with him.”

“Peter,” Stiles started, “I don’t know how. That’s why I didn’t—”

Gunfire interrupted him. It was far off, but quick. The situation beyond their hallway was escalating.

“We have to move,” Peter said. He didn’t bother to wait for Stiles to prepare himself before yanking him up from the ground. It jostled Stiles’ injury, and he bit back a whimper. “These hunters aren’t stupid,” the wolf continued as he all but dragged Stiles onward. “But you have to get to Derek.”

Stiles couldn’t bring himself to argue, but he let himself hope. Despite the pain, Peter would haul him to Derek’s side. Despite what he’d seen, Derek was alive. Despite it all, Stiles would have the opportunity to make things right.

The hallways felt like miles of labyrinth.

The aching and cramping of muscles faded into lead-heavy numbness. Over the thundering blood in his ears and his own harsh breaths, Stiles could barely make out Peter muttering quiet reassurances, soft encouragements. Pain bled from where Peter touched him, but its effectiveness faded with every step. Stiles’ nerves started fraying all over again. He couldn’t control the tiny whimpers that escaped him every so often.

“Here,” Peter said after what felt like an eternity. “The trail ends here.”

A steel door.

The small window in the top third of the door was made of thick glass, like what aquariums used to let people walk through a shark tank. Level 5 Security sort of thing. But it was scuffed and scratched and cloudy. They couldn’t see inside. Stiles imagined it hid radioactive biohazard.

Or an angry alpha werewolf.

Peter helped Stiles lean against the wall beside the door, and Stiles was grateful for the momentary reprieve. His good leg shook beneath him, and though it felt like it had all the strength of a wet noodle, he stayed upright. He watched as Peter cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders, how between one breath and the next, hair covered half his face, his brow hardened and his jaw lengthened. Fangs glistened behind his smirk, and claws glinted from the tips of his fingers. His eyes blinked electric blue, and he didn’t ask if Stiles was ready before he reared back and slammed a booted foot into the door.

Stiles tapped into his hungry Spark and the world shifted to auras and glows. Peter’s sea green life force pulsed to Stiles with the power of his lupine shift, the heat of his rage, the bloodlust in his veins. But Stiles had seen enough raid footage digging through his dad’s files, had played enough video games to know he had a job to do despite Peter’s power.

Stiles was the ranged attacker.

Peter was the tank.

The door crashed inward, its ancient looking hinges straining beneath the force of Peter’s blow.

When Stiles threw himself into the room first, the energy flowing through him felt like his Spark in the woods, that ethereal source separate from his body but powering its movement. He tossed out a force of his will to subdue any immediate threats. It felt like a blowing up a pool float with a single breath and left him just as lightheaded. He landed heavy, and his focus cracked when fresh pain shot up his body. He choked it down and blinked through the dark edges of his vision. Peter was at his back a moment later, and when nothing assaulted them, they breathed heavily and surveyed the room.

And there, at its center…

“Derek…!”

The bright blue aura surrounding him was faint, but there—and unmistakable.

He was strapped to a surgical table, on his stomach, prone, with his arms flush against his sides. The bolts Derek had protected Stiles from were still in his back, metal spines imbedded in his bare back that rose and fell with his wet, ragged breathing. Blood oozed from the wounds, tar-black, and slipped down his pallid skin. Beside the bed was an IV stand with a black tube that disappeared into Derek’s arm. His face was covered with a hood.

Peter yanked Stiles from his stunned staring when he ducked under his arm. He hefted him to his feet, again, with Stiles leaning heavily against the wolf’s side. Peter’s long strides carried them effortlessly through the large room, but Stiles scrambled too, hobbling along with the urgency of missed opportunities and whatever in Derek called his Spark.

Derek was there. Derek was alive. Derek was—

They didn’t see it. In their singular focus of _alpha, Derek_ , neither of them noticed.

Momentum carried Stiles over the threshold, and his leg couldn’t bear his weight. It buckled under him, but he caught himself on the edge of Derek’s table before he hit the ground. Confused, he glanced back over his shoulder to find Peter sprawled with an angry scowl on his face.

“What the—?”

And there, between them, slabs of wood were drilled into the concrete. It formed a perfect box barrier, separating Derek and Peter. Mountain ash—whole pieces of it, like what lined the baseboards of Scott’s house.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Stiles bemoaned.

“I told you they weren’t stupid,” Peter said, climbing to his feet. “Tend to Derek. I’ll try to find something so you can pry that shit out of the ground.” He disappeared through a door on the opposite side of the room.

Alone, Stiles hefted himself onto his exhausted leg, leaning heavily against the table. He hopped around the opposite edge where he could face Derek, and yanked the hood off. Beneath the dingy burlap, Derek’s face was half shifted, ears pointed and fangs descended, but his eyes were lidded, a faint ring of crimson glowing dully around blow pupils.

“Der?” Stiles chanced. He ran his hand through the alpha’s sweaty hair, his touch gentle to try to bring him around. “Derek, can you hear me?”

Derek didn’t respond.

His aura was faint, weak. Stiles couldn’t tell how long they’d been held, but between his own injured leg, and Derek’s depleted strength, he guessed a while. Long enough, anyway, to bring an alpha to near death—he wasn’t healing—and for Stiles’ wound to get infected.

“Derek, please.” Stiles sniffled and blinked back tears. “I’m gonna get you out of here. You’re gonna be okay. Just hang in there for me, alright?” His gaze found the IV stand and the drip bag flowing into Derek’s veins. It had to go. Whatever it was couldn’t be good. He yanked the needle from Derek’s arm and pressed the edge of his sweater sleeve where a drop of dark blood welled. He’d seen Melissa do it plenty of times: apply pressure and a bandage to let the blood clot and prevent bruising.

Free from Derek’s arm, the needle continued dribbling whatever the IV’s contents were, and upon closer inspection, it reminded Stiles of the pills Scott had fed Gerard Argent. It looked a lot like—

“Mountain ash? They were pumping you with _mountain ash_?”

Its removal had an immediate effect. Derek blinked slowly, swallowed thickly. “Stiles…?” he managed, his voice quiet and raw.

“Yeah,” Stiles said, his throat tightening. He carded his fingers through Derek’s hair again, while he went to work on the straps holding him down. “It’s me. I’m here.”

“Stiles, I can’t—” He tugged against his restraints, and though they were simple leather buckles, Derek didn’t have the strength to break free of them.

“I know. I’m working on it.”

Wrists, neck, waist, ankles. The hunters found a best way to keep an alpha down, vulnerable, pumping him full of a supernatural bane without, technically, poisoning him. When the leather straps fell away, Stiles found dark purple bruises, ugly against Derek’s uncharacteristically pale skin.

“You’re not healing,” Stiles murmured, tracing the marks with a soft fingertip. “Why aren’t you healing?”

Derek groaned and tried to pull his aching arms beneath him to get up. He halted, however, when Stiles pressed the flat of his palm against his lower back.

“I need to get these bolts out of you.”

“Don’t,” Derek said, but Stiles was already grabbing one and preparing to yank.

Stiles stopped at Derek’s command and took a moment to breathe. He had to get Derek out. He had to get Derek to safety. He had to take care of him, tend his wounds. All of these were absolutes, vibrating through his veins parallel to the power of his Spark. But Stiles couldn’t become a slave to impulse, despite its delicious temptation. Basic first aid: don’t remove impaled items from the flesh; to do so would be to literally unplug a hole. Or seven. And there was no guarantee that Derek’s werewolf metabolism—now slowed—would be able to close the wounds before he bled out.

“Okay,” Stiles sighed. “Okay. But I need you to sit up. Do you think you can do that?”

The alpha hummed a vague affirmative, and Stiles’ was in his space as he slowly moved, turned, accommodated the bolts in his back. Each grunt or hiss, each clench of his jaw and flinch in his body made Stiles that much angrier with the hunters. He knew Derek was no stranger to pain, but that didn’t mean Derek was supposed to continue enduring it. It didn’t mean Stiles wouldn’t make the hunters pay.

Seated, Derek’s breath seemed even more labored than before; shorter, wetter, less effective. “You’re hurt,” he managed, licking the blood that stained his dry lips.

“I’m fine,” Stiles lied. It was easy to dismiss the dead weight weighing down his thigh when Derek was in front of him. It was easy to forget how fatigued and bone-weary he was when Derek was talking to him. Everything fell away because Derek was alive.

The alpha rested a heavy hand on Stiles’ wrist, and his veins went black of their own volition. He flinched—“Stiles…”—then tightened his grip before Stiles could jerk away, and continued to leech his pain.

Stiles just sighed, and didn’t fight. “I know I fucked up,” he said, watching where Derek touched him. It was easier than seeing the grey hue of his face, the glassiness of his eyes, the blood on his lips. “I know I lied and I know I don’t have the right to ask, but I have to.”

“Hmm?” Derek traced the bone of Stiles’ wrist with his thumb, encouraging.

“I need you to trust me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bonding.

To Stiles’ horror, he watched Derek’s expression go very carefully blank, a door slamming on the pain he’d worn so openly just moments before. Derek’s brilliant eyes closed and Stiles felt his fingers spasm against his wrist before pulling his hand away.

“Trust you,” he repeated, barely more than a rasp of breath.

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “Trust me.” He gritted his teeth and forced himself to breathe though his nose. Derek breaking physical contact meant opening the floodgates to Stiles’ pain. The numbness was fading. Teetering on the brink of shock, sometimes his brain would short-circuit, sporadically go offline in relaying the message of agony. Then it would come back, hitting him hard enough to steal his breath. And Derek pulling away hurt in so many ways.

But he could make this right. He could _fix this_ and get them out of here. Alive.

Derek just had to trust him.

And, well, Stiles had to trust himself.

The alpha gave a short nod, and Stiles watched his jaw clench beneath stubble, longer now since he’d been captured. His shoulders tensed, shadows of contracted muscle stark beneath pale, blood-stained skin, and where he moved to grip the table, his knuckles bleached. He was bracing himself.

“No,” Stiles said, quickly wrapping his hands around Derek’s wrists. How hard Derek clutched the edge of the table caused his arms to tremble; Stiles felt it. “You don’t have to do that yet. Here.” He eased one of Derek’s hands up and away, and with it came the alpha’s curious gaze. “Pop your claws for me.” Stile ran a thumb up the center of Derek’s palm to coax compliance. Derek’s broad, strong hands ended in razor points at Stiles’ request. “There we go.”

Stiles shrugged out of his hoodie and yanked his t-shirt over his head, then tossed them onto the table beside Derek. Shirtless, the room had a nip of chill, and he shivered, but he forced what he hoped was a reassuring smile. It faded, however, when Derek let him take his hand, and Stiles, fearing he’d never get the chance again, ran the pad of his thumb over the ridges of Derek’s knuckles, traced the lines of his palm. He wanted to lace their fingers, clutch him tight to ground them both. He wanted to bring Derek’s hand to his lips, kiss the calloused skin and sigh into it.

“Stiles, what are you—?”

He tightened his grip and raked Derek’s claws along the inside of his arm. Weak human flesh sliced open, clean, and bright red blood welled until it went dark and slid down the length of his forearm. The wounds were deeper than Stiles intended—he misjudged the sharpness of alpha werewolf claws. But he’d missed the veins, so he was fine. He wouldn’t bleed out. But it stung. Shit, it burned.

Derek snatched his hand back, eyes wide, and jerked back despite the bolts still imbedded in his back. “What the hell are you doing? Are you insane?!” He paled even further when Stiles’ bright red blood stained his fingertips, his claws. Something cracked behind his eyes, something like self-loathing, something lost. “Stiles…”

“I asked you to trust me,” Stiles said, dabbing the fingers of his free hand into his own blood. “So trust me.”

While Derek still stared at his own hand in horror, undoubtedly reliving some terrible memory Stiles carelessly triggered, Stiles painted crimson runes and sigils down Derek’s neck and bare sternum with his blood. Signs for _binding_ along certain chakra points. Psychic, communication, heart, life force. For spiritual connectedness, Stiles took Derek by the face, heedless of how he smeared his blood along his cheek, and tilted his head down, baring the back of his neck; the alpha submitted without question or resistance. Stiles marked the top of his head, the red rune lost in the midnight stands of his hair.

“You still with me, Der?” he asked. He lifted his head with a knuckle beneath his chin, forcing them to meet eyes. “Derek?”

“I hurt you.” He sounded weak, weary, wounded. He still wasn’t healing, and his eyes had a faraway look, distant, disconnected.

“I’m fine,” Stiles said easily. He painted the last marks into Derek’s palm. “I promise.”

“Are you Binding us?” Derek asked.

“I need your blood next.”

Derek sliced his arm open with his claws much like Stiles had done. “You said you were worried about screwing it up,” he mentioned, watching Stiles dip his fingers into the blackish blood welling from his wounds. His words slurred, like his tongue was too heavy or his fangs too cumbersome.

“I am,” Stiles answered. It was harder painting the runes and sigils backwards. It was harder focusing when Derek watched him, his pupils dilating and contracting as he tried to watch Stiles work.

Stiles tapped into his Spark in an effort to monitor Derek via observing his aura. The blue hue of his life force was fading, mere wisps floating from the outline of his silhouette like steam.

Stiles painted faster.

Derek’s eyes, sometimes ringed in crimson, sometimes not, were fluttering shut. His breath bubbled from his lungs. A weak cough occasionally wracked his body, muscles spasming with the force and pain. But he waited, and didn’t complain.

“Okay,” Stiles said, sliding a blood-slick finger against the flat of his palm. “Here we go.” He paused a moment and ducked into Derek’s line of sight. “Ready?”

When Derek nodded, Stiles clasped their hands together—the ones marked with each other’s blood—and laced their fingers, clutching hard. He swallowed when Derek’s squeezed his hand back, then muttered the incantation under his breath. He inhaled and exhaled the words without pause, letting his Spark flow through him. It drove his aura to twine with Derek’s, colored mists snaking around one another, braiding and binding like strands of DNA. Energy flared where their blood marked one another, where the runes and sigils matched, hot, painful, _overwhelming_.

Derek’s breath hitched, and he slumped forward, his forehead resting against Stiles’ shoulder. His labored breathing sped up, became shallow, desperate, and a strangled sound wretched from somewhere deep in his chest. But Stiles continued chanting, reciting the words he’d been memorizing in his efforts to be a good emissary for his alpha.

Through his enhanced sight, Stiles watched Derek’s aura begin to brighten, flaring every now and again, pulsing in time with his own. Just a few more moments, just a few more lines, and the ritual would be complete.

He thought about the moment they met. _This is private property._

He thought about Derek staggering in front of his Jeep. _This guy is everywhere!_

He thought about Derek shoving him in the chest. _Go! Run!_

He thought about afternoons researching, nights tracking. _Don’t worry, we’ll find them._

He thought about everything he had with Derek. Everything he could have with Derek. What they were. What they could be.

_I think you two make a pretty good pair._

Alpha and emissary. And before that, something inexplicable that brought them together again and again, neither too far out of the other’s orbit.

His Spark helped soften the blow to his mind, his energy, helped drive the Bond deep between them. Derek, however, had no such protection. He whimpered and whined, soft, high, suffering. His free hand clutched desperately at Stiles’ side, hard enough to bruise, but Stiles pressed onward.

And when the spell was complete, Stiles stepped closer to Derek, bringing them chest to chest. The alpha rested heavily against him, warm breath ghosting along Stiles’ neck. “Leech my pain,” Stiles said, and felt it the moment Derek’s complied. Sharper, keener than before. “Keep pulling, okay? Don’t stop.” Because though Derek might not have known it, and certainly couldn’t see it, it was the same way strength could be transferred between them. Stiles grew tired as Derek’s aura brightened still.

Stiles reached around Derek, fingers inching towards the bolt highest in his back, and gently wrapped his hand around it. “Deep breath, Der,” was all the warning he gave the alpha before wrenching the bolt free. It clattered to the floor when he dropped it.

Derek grunted, clutched Stiles harder, closer, and pulled harder at Stiles’ pain. “Keep going,” he managed, pressing his face against Stiles’ neck.

Stiles grabbed another bolt and pulled. It fell with another clatter.

Again and again Stiles pulled, sometimes scraping bone, sometimes pulling flesh. And each time, Derek tightened his hold on Stiles, continued pulling his emissary’s strength to supplement his own. By the time he yanked the last bolt free, Stiles leaned most of his weight against Derek, exhausted, in pain, on the verge of fainting. His hands trembled, his breathing was short, and shadows darkened the edges of his vision.

Another wave of shock, this time harder to stave off.

“How ya feelin’?” he asked, unable to raise his voice above a murmur.

“Healing,” Derek said, gravel-rough. “You’re hurting.”

Stiles gave a noncommittal hum.

“You’re sick.”

Stiles hummed again, swayed on his one good leg until his alpha steadied him.

Derek cupped his cheeks, thumbs stroking beneath his eyes. His gaze, steadily ringed alpha red, scanned Stiles’ face, searching, assessing, worried. “Stiles?”

“Der’k.”

A crash came from behind Stiles, and before he could react, Derek leapt off the table. A rough, clawed hand pushed Stiles behind him, leaving the human to struggle with his injured leg to turn around and brace himself against the table.

Peter lay sprawled on the ground with a crowbar in his hand. The door through which he’d originally exited was dented and cracked, the werewolf having clearly been thrown through it. Following Peter, however, was a heavily armored, heavily armed hunter.

It looked like SWAT or riot gear: black, Kevlar, with a slew of devices and weapons easily within reach. Helmet. Rifles, pistols, knives. And that was just what Stiles could see at first glance from over Derek’s shoulder.

The hunter took one look at where Derek stood at the threshold of mountain ash and sighed. “Should have cut off the head of the snake while I still had the chance,” she muttered.

 _She?_ The leader of the hunters was a woman?

Holy shit.

She swung one of the rifles against her back over her shoulder into her waiting hands. She cocked the weapon and fired two shots at Peter. He flinched, roared, and curled in on himself. Blood quickly pooled from his side. Despite this, he slid the crowbar across the concrete towards Stiles. It stopped just outside the mountain ash square.

The hunter then aimed at Derek and fired.

Derek roared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles is a dangerous emissary.

Derek dropped to his knees, clutching his shoulder. He hunched over, snarling, growling, and watched the hunter take calculated, intentional steps towards where they cowered.

Her boots echoed as loud as her gunshots, cracking through the blood pounding in Stiles’ ears with each stride. She didn’t have to rush. She had an alpha wounded and weak, a beta writhing somewhere off in the corner, and an emissary who could hardly stand. No, there was little need for her to worry.

Except there was.

She cocked her gun again, kept it level with Derek.

Time slowed for Stiles. He perceived every second sliced into its individual parts: instead of continuous motion, he saw series of snapshots, and at any point between them, he could react and change the course of fate.

He hung onto the table, precariously kept upright by some combination of luck and will. His body was lead, weak and heavy—but his magic was flaring, crackling just beneath the skin, waiting and yearning. So between one snapshot and the next, between pulling the rifle’s bolt and discharging the used cartridge, somewhere within the arc of the hunter’s stride, Stiles surged forward. Away from the table, he lurched between Derek and the approaching hunter, between Derek and the bullet, between Derek and more pain.

His eyes clouded over, no longer an oncoming storm, but a maelstrom. Power snapped and popped at his fingertips, then rushed through him in a surge of will, anger, and the thrumming urge of _protect protect protect_.

When the bullet fired from its chamber, it sailed through the air a snapshot at a time, in increments Stiles intended to take every advantage of; he was ready.

It was a large round; military grade, something the police department used sparingly. It could probably pierce armor. But when it met with the force of Stiles’ magic, it slowed, then slammed hard with renewed force. It reverberated through Stiles, his magic, through the very fiber of his being, but it didn’t break the shell of energy that engulfed him and Derek.

Time resumed its normal pace.

The bullet ricocheted with a cartoonish whizz.

She fired a second round, and it met the same fate.

She stopped halfway through her approach and reconsidered. Experimentally, she fired a third round, and when it, too, ricocheted, it sliced through the side of her thigh. A superficial wound, but one she felt. It left her reeling from the sheer impossibility of it. “The fuck?”

Physical exhaustion fizzled out his Spark, so Stiles took Derek by the bicep and hefted him to his feet with one hand, yanking him backward a split-second later. With his free hand, he toppled the table, and dragged Derek with him to dive behind it.

The hunter fired at them, their movements hasty and unexpected in her distraction. Instead of glancing off Stiles’ magic, the slugs hit the metal table with echoing _thunks_. Stiles cringed with every landed shot.

“The hell are you doing?” Derek breathed beside him, hand pressed tight over his wound. It was just above his heart by a few precious inches. Blood seeped between his fingers, ran down his chest from beneath the heel of his palm.

Stiles spared his alpha a glance, then reached over and ran a hand over the back of Derek’s shoulder. No exit wound. The bullet was still in him, and there was no telling what sort of round it was. Fuck. “Trying to buy us some time,” he muttered.

Derek watched him for an impossibly long moment, eyes flicking this way and that over Stiles’ face. His fresh injury was forgotten in his need to scrutinize his emissary, and Stiles fidgeted beneath the weight it. “You’re tapped,” he said after a beat.

“I’m aware of that, thanks,” Stiles panted, resting his head against flat of the table.

Another shot fired, bouncing off the leg of a table. The hunter switched her vantage without either of them realizing. Stiles threw his weight into his side of their cover without thinking. Metal grinding against concrete, it moved, swung, shifted, to continue protecting them. The discarded crossbow bolts knocked around and clanked together.

Derek took Stiles’ hand. “You had me take your power,” he said. “Take it back.”

“What?” Stiles blinked, confused.

“When you pulled the bolts from my back, you had me absorb your strength. Take it back. Take my strength, for your magic.” He clutched Stiles’ hand tighter.

Despite how Stiles tugged, Derek didn’t relent. “No,” Stiles said. He tried to scoot away. “Hell no. You’re still healing. I’m fine. I’ll be okay in just a few—”

More shots.

There were a minimum of ten bullets in the magazine for the rifle she carried—Stiles had seen similar firearms in the police armory—and upwards of fifty depending on whatever upgrades the hunter had added. She’d fired off six according to Stiles’ count, and if the dents made in the table were any measure, it wouldn’t hold out through fifty-plus hits; never mind if the same spot was repeatedly hit.

Derek flinched beneath the hail of fire, instinctively curling himself over Stiles to protect his emissary. “We don’t have a few minutes,” he growled.

Derek wasn’t wrong.

Looking down at their hands, a new type of adrenaline pumped through Stiles, piercing and sharp. The kind that left him trembling.

Finality. It was _finality._

He thought if they lived through this, he’d see if they’d ever hold hands on the couch during a movie, walking through grocery store aisles, or in bed while Derek pressed him into the mattress. If they lived through this, Stiles would tell Derek how he felt. If they lived through this, Stiles would give this thing, this whatever between them beyond alpha and emissary, beyond friends…he would give it a name.

Stiles choked down his nerves with an intentional swallow.

He could do this. He had to.

He just didn’t know what _this_ was, other than getting them all out alive. He didn’t know what to do besides possibly kill the hunter, and he didn’t know if he could before she fired off a fatal shot. He wasn’t fast enough. He wasn’t strong enough.

But if meant Derek could escape…he’d do it. He’d do it in a heartbeat.

He would die for Derek Hale.

Bonded now as they were, his death would tear Derek apart. He’d read about alphas mourning Bonded emissaries for years, decades. Packs imploded while alphas neglected themselves in their sorrow. Stiles had made light of it in Derek’s kitchen, but the gravity of it hadn’t escaped either of them. Derek knew what it meant, probably even more than Stiles.

“Stiles? Whatever you’re—”

Stiles didn’t hear the rest. His eyes dropped to the seven bolts on the ground near his feet.

What was it Lydia had said about Jennifer Blake? When she had Aiden had tried to cover for Derek and Cora, to let them escape. Stiles wracked his brain for the details. Something about Jennifer killing Kali. With glass. Hundreds of shards of glass. Like a scene out of the Matrix.

“—iles!”

“I have an idea.”

Derek arched an eyebrow expectedly, then ducked when another series of shots hit their cover. He slid lower behind their cover, poised to knock Stiles to the ground if necessary.

“How do you absorb pain?” Without taking his hand from Derek’s, Stiles reached forward and collected the bolts, their tips crusted in dark blood—Derek’s blood. Torn flesh hung from some of the razor points, but the metal was a good, solid weight in his hand. He could almost feel it scraping against Derek’s ribs in some sick echo, so he gripped it tighter.

“It’s just like anything,” Derek answered. “When you lift your arm to grab something, you don’t think about the process of lifting your arm; you just grab. Same idea. Don’t think too much about it. Just take.”

Just take.

It’s what everyone did to Derek: just take. Derek was treated as a tool, a means to an end, an object. Kate, Scott, Jennifer, Deucalion. And he wasn’t, damn it, despite how often Derek had been lied to and used in his life. But here he was with bright, earnest eyes, weary and covered in blood, _offering_. To Stiles. After he’d almost single-handedly given his pack to a band of hunters, Derek was telling him to take, giving what of his strength he could.

Stiles nodded, shaky. “Just take.”

“Just take,” Derek agreed.

A soft sigh escaped Stiles’ parted lips before he closed his eyes and raked his will across the bottom of his magic reserves. His Spark was hungry, raging, bound by the limits of an exhausted human body. Opening his eyes brought the lines of auras to light, but he struggled to focus. Normally sharp lines of color were instead murky, blurred, but the wisps between he and Derek remained interwoven. He stared long and hard, and watched in awe as the lines began to sharpen. “Derek…?”

“Just take, Stiles. You’re doing fine.” Gentle reassurance, and it reminded Stiles of so many moments in Derek’s loft, he wanted to scream.

When werewolves leeched pain, their veins went dark as tar, pulsing as they drained discomfort, emotional and physical, from the person they touched. Derek taking Stiles’ strength had worked similarly, but Stiles’ enhanced vision showed the parallel workings of their pulsing auras. Stiles taking from Derek, however, had Derek’s aura following the lines of Stiles’ veins, glowing bright and hot at the points of transfer. Doing so drained Derek. His aura dimmed like when Stiles first found him strapped to the table.

“Stay with me, Der,” Stiles suddenly murmured, urgent. He tugged him, and Derek raised his head from where he’d been nodding off. “Okay? Stay awake. I’m gonna get us out of here.”

Derek hummed softly and weakly squeezed Stiles’ hand.

Stiles took a breath and used the edge of the table to stand. A fired shot was his immediate greeting, but what felt like a flinch was his Spark jerking him aside like a rag doll. He dodged the shot. Sudden, erratic movements made him a difficult target, but it also threw him off balance with his useless leg.

The hunter kept firing, advancing on Stiles quickly. Instead of continuing to bob and weave, Stiles raised his free hand and threw up another bubble of protective energy. Bullets ricocheted. The hunter snarled and kept firing. Sparks flew were bullets hit metal, medical equipment burst and fell over. Peter may or may not have been hit again—Stiles couldn’t be sure.

Blood dribbled steadily from the gunshot wound in Derek’s shoulder. He leaned against the overturned table, eyes growing heavier with each shallow gasp he made. His grip on Stiles’ hand loosened until it fell away completely. Giving so much of his energy had all but sacrificed his healing.

Stiles tried not to think too much of it. Worry for Derek, however, quieted when the alpha slid the leg of his jeans up and wrapped his hand around his good ankle. No power transference; just Derek letting Stiles know he was still there.

Hand free of Derek’s hold, Stiles focused on the hum of his magic, how the energies and auras of the world were strings waiting to be pulled and plucked. He thought about what lines emanated from the bolts, what properties the metal carried. And he sunk the hooks of his power into their material. When he raised his hand, they followed suit, slaves to the summons of his will.

The hunter froze.

He considered a snarky remark, something clever and dangerous, right out of the pages of a comic book. He thought about making the hunter suffer. Pin her to the wall like a butterfly in a collection and make hurt her to the marrow of her bones for what she’d done to Derek.

He wondered how satisfying killing Kali had been to Jennifer.

A twitch, a jerk. The hunter reached for _something_.

Stiles let the bolts fly.

Seven steel rods sank deep into the hunter’s torso with little resistance. Stiles heard the squishy thud as each point hit home, burying several inches deep. Shoulders, sternum, abdomen. Shock hit her a split-second later, and her rifle fell limply from her hand. It reminded him of a death scene in Lord of the Rings, but less heroic. When the hunter fell to her knees with a wet gasp, it wasn’t a moment of mourning.

She had hurt Derek.

Stiles clenched a fist and twisted his wrist. The bolts rotated in the hunter’s body, tearing through flesh and grinding against bone. Her scream satisfied his Spark, a sacrifice of anguish and a fitting revenge. When she fell to the side, she hit the concrete with a wet sound, splashing the pool of her own blood that quickly formed.

With the hunter dead, Stiles extended his hand and felt for the lines of energy from the nails in the mountain ash boards. They were thin, slippery to his clumsy fumbling. The bolts had been bigger, easier to latch. But he managed to snag the nails with hooks of energy, and with a flick of his wrist, wrenched them free of the concrete.

Stiles eased himself to the ground beside Derek. The alpha hardly kept his eyes open, but his lips ticked upwards when their gazes met. He kicked the loose board with his good leg and broke the seal. Leaning heavily against the table, Stiles said, “Peter’s hurt.”  

“I know.” Derek’s voice was soft, tired.

“Hunter’s dead.”

“I know.”

Stiles hummed, then sighed. “I’m gonna get that bullet out of you.”

“Okay.”

Stiles nodded. “Okay. Come here.”

Derek shifted sluggishly, pressing his wounded shoulder into Stiles’ awaiting hands, then rested his temple against the side of the table. The hand he’d been holding to the wound fell away the moment Stiles’ fingertips brushed his skin, and he balled his fists against his thighs, twitching with how he braced himself.

Huffing in amusement, Stiles took one of Derek’s hands and guided it to clutch at his wrist. “I can’t separate between absorbing pain and absorbing your strength yet. So take what you can from me to help your healing along, okay? This is going to hurt.”

“I can handle pain.”

“You shouldn’t have to,” Stiles countered easily. Then he snorted. “Just do it.”

Derek didn’t need to be told twice.

The first draw hit Stiles harder than he remembered the last. It felt like a taking six shots of tequila, then immediately trying to stand. His vision blurred and his head swam, but he blinked and willed his eyes to focus through the headache. Despite the slight tremor, his hands were mostly steady, and he grimaced when he stuck a finger into the bullet hole.

Soft flesh gave and blood welled and the whole ordeal made a very gross squishing sound as Stiles fished around Derek’s body for the piece of metal. The wolf’s bruising grip on his wrist tightened every now and then when Derek gave a quiet grunt and tensed.

“Sorry, sorry,” Stiles breathed. He took a moment to regroup as Derek continued sapping his strength. “I think I almost got it. Just another second and—”

The bullet came free.

Heaving a sigh, Stiles dropped his forehead to rest against Derek’s uninjured shoulder. “Holy shit. That was fucking gross. I don’t know how I didn’t puke.”

Derek huffed something like a laugh. “You feeling tired yet?” he asked. Stiles felt his voice rumble where he was pressed up against him.

“…yeah, why?”

“I’m taking everything I can from you, so I can get us out of here.”

“…oh.”

“Don’t fight it. I’ll keep you safe.”

Another energy tug had Stiles’ eyes slipping closed, his limbs going limp. The last thing he felt was Derek running a bloody hand through his hair, telling him he did good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek finds Stiles after the dust settles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *edited because the last version was absolutely terrible and I'm embarrassed to have ever posted it*

Stiles floated between a lull and unconsciousness, something not quite like sleep. Whether from Derek sapping his strength or his Spark, he was vaguely aware of only a handful of things. Like the fact that he was safe. Whoever held him—probably Derek—did so carefully, like he was precious and to be protected. At some point, he was loaded into a vehicle—he groaned and whimpered when it jostled his injuries. They still hurt, piercing jabs that disrupted his otherwise peaceful half-existence. Warmth pressed against his forehead, and the discomforted faded. He quieted.

At the hospital, he roused enough to fumble through communicating with the doctors. He told them what hurt, what didn’t. He gave some vague story about what happened—abandoned animal traps in the woods. His phone broke. His friends found him. Scott, apparently, had been the one to contact his father and had brought him to the hospital.

Derek was never mentioned.

Melissa helped him roll over when the doctor administered a series of injections—antibiotics for his infected ankle—straight into his ass cheek. It burned all the way down his leg for the fire to pool in his foot. Melissa rubbed his back and tried not to laugh when he complained. They gave him a painkiller and sedative to shut him up.

His ankle was fractured, initially from the steel-jaw trap. Stress fractures webbed outward from the initial break because of hobbling around. His lacerations and the raging infection didn’t allow a plaster or fiberglass cast, so the staff cleaned and stitched his wounds, then wrapped his right leg in a splint. He was ordered to bed rest for the next ten days with as little movement as possible; crutches if absolutely necessary, and as much assistance as his family could provide to avoid causing more stress fractures. Once the stitches came out, he could get a traditional cast, and maybe a boot once he’d healed enough. He had several bottles of pain killers and antibiotics, and was told to return in about two weeks for a follow-up appointment. The bruises from the beating would heal with time.

Thankfully, Stiles didn’t have to pay too much attention to the specifics of his care. The painkiller left him drowsy. He had enough mind to work with the staff to get him into a wheelchair, and then into his dad’s cruiser once he was discharged. But he fell asleep on the way home, face smearing the glass of the passenger seat window.

Stiles woke in his own bed with his foot elevated by several fluffy pillows. Alone.

His clothes were clean—pajamas, really—and he didn’t feel grimy. Swiping a hand through his hair told him he’d been bathed, or at least his hair had been washed; and when he touched his face, his hands were clean. Absently, he scratched at the gauze wrapped around his forearm, where he’d cut his arm open with Derek’s claws. That’s when his dad walked in.

“Hey, kiddo. Good to see you’re awake.”

Stiles mustered up what he could of a smile. “Kinda wishing I was still asleep.” He scrubbed his face, frustrated. “I don’t remember much.”

“You’ve been in and out of it for a while now, so I’m not surprised it’s bit hazy. Just so you know, things have been handled. Your wolves are fine.”

“My wolves.”

His dad raised an eyebrow skeptically. “You know, those supernatural fur balls you run around with? One of whom is your best friend and currently waiting downstairs?”

Scott was there, waiting downstairs, in the living room, probably sitting on the same couch they’d sat on as kids to read comic books or watch movies. Somehow, the idea of Scott waiting for him, waiting on one of the paramount pieces of furniture where their friendship had been built, twisted his gut. It was so incredibly stupid and so incredibly powerful.

Stiles had fucked up. Derek and the Hale pack had nearly been wiped out. It was all Stiles’ fault. To face a True Alpha—no—to face _Scott McCall_ after such a monumental failure just wasn’t something he could do. He couldn’t bear Scott’s infinite sympathy or understanding. His compassion had no business attempting to ease the burden of Stiles’ guilt. And Scott had no business sitting on the couch downstairs like he belonged there, like he’d been there a million times, like Stiles was still someone he wanted to call friend.

He nodded an acknowledgement, then said, “Would you mind telling him I’m not up for visitors?”

His father knew a lie when he heard one, but chose to ignore it. Instead, he said, “I’ll tell him you’ll call when you’re feeling better.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

The Sheriff nodded before leaving his son’s bedroom. He closed the door quietly behind him, leaving Stiles alone, again, with nothing but his muddied thoughts and his fuzzy pain.

Four days passed.

Four days of painfully gimping around on crutches to avoid inconveniencing his dad, and choking down his dignity when he couldn’t. Four days of half-baths, pain med dozing, and turning away visitors. Four days of a roiling gut, sleepless nights, and listless days.

The text messages built, but Stiles never replied. None of them were from Derek.

Derek, who he couldn’t stop thinking about. Derek, whose blue aura had tinted and twined with Stiles’ own, the remnants of which Stiles could still see if he summoned his Spark. Derek, to whom he’d Bonded. He could feel the thrum of the alpha’s energy buzzing dully in the back of his skull—he was alive; not at full strength, but getting there. _Healing_. Stiles could tell. Stiles could feel it. Derek never messaged, never called, never stopped by.

Maybe it was for the best. Maybe Stiles had been wrong about everything.

Stiles was Derek’s emissary. Alphas and emissaries are supposed to at least be amicable—Jennifer Blake and Kali were perfect examples of _that_ relationship going south.

_I’m trying to be a better alpha._

_It would be for the good of the pack._

Derek sighing against his throat was just as likely to be resignation as relief.

Derek taking his pain was just as likely to be necessity as nicety.

Derek giving in to Stiles was just as likely to be Derek feeling like he had to as Derek actually wanting to.

Self-sacrifice was woven into the marrow of Derek’s bones, forged through fire and ash. Stiles had a Spark, was nearby, and would be a convenient emissary. As obnoxious and abrasive as Stiles was, Derek could at least trust him not to intentionally backstab him—not that intention mattered much with the last week and some.

And then Stiles had gone and forced a Bond on Derek when both of them were too weak to properly think it through, to properly give consent. Fuck, Stiles was no better than Jennifer Blake, magicking Derek in a vulnerable moment when he had no other options.

When text messages from the pack became increasingly demanding, increasingly worried, Stiles just silenced his phone.

He shifted his sight and watched the space in his aura where Derek’s had mingled. Pale sky blue—a perfect blend of Stiles’ own silvery energy and Derek’s bright blue—burned along the lines where he’d painted his skin with his alpha’s blood. From the center of his chest, a wisp, like a line of smoke from a burning cigarette, faded into the ether. Stiles touched it, and to his active Spark, it felt like a thread. When he ran his fingertip down its length, it hummed like a guitar string. He wondered if Derek had something similar.

He wondered if he could _see_ how he and Derek were connected.

He experimentally plucked it, a jolt of warmth shot through his chest.

Stiles stared at the wisp, swallowed thickly, and wished he could _un-see_ it.

On the fifth night, he had a nightmare.

The Bonding went wrong. His Spark drained Derek dry, and there was nothing he could do to control it. He couldn’t stop it. Alpha-red eyes narrowed in accusation; Derek had trusted Stiles with his life, with his pack! And all Stiles could do was offer hollow apologies as Derek died in his arms.

He woke gasping, sweaty, twisted in his sheets. They wrapped around his injured ankle and strained the splint, pulling on the tender, healing bone. Stiles bit the meat of his thumb to quiet his cries.

The following morning, with dawn just breaking through the gap in his curtains, Stiles was pale, exhausted, and half-trapped in the sheets. It was too early for his dad to check on him, and pride wouldn’t let Stiles call for him. He’d already inconvenienced everyone enough—with his stubbornness, his stupidity, his ego. But patience quick led to panic. The soft bedclothes were too tangled—they felt like shackles. His heart was pounding too hard—it felt like shock. Stiles whimpered, tugged feebly at his bindings, then something broke.

Whatever reserves he pulled from to keep it together were tapped. He hurt, he was lonely, he was ashamed of himself. Wet, shuddering breaths quaked through his chest, and hot tears rolled down his cheeks.

“Stiles?”

Between one hitched gasp and the next, he hadn’t heard his window open, hadn’t noticed the hum of energy in the back of his mind sharpen. He didn’t notice Derek.

“Stiles, what happened?” Large, warm hands—tender despite how easily they could tear through flesh—halted his struggling. The rumble of Derek’s voice pierced the veil and allowed some sense of reason to bleed into Stiles’ head. “Stiles. Stiles, here. It’s me. Stop fighting.”

It took twenty minutes for them to ease Stiles’ broken ankle out of the panic-formed cocoon. Like with the steel-jaw trap, all of his struggling had only made it worse.

Derek shouldered Stiles’ weight like a parent with a child—easy, careful, confident—and straightened the bed clothes before helping him get settled. Worry creased his brow, kept him hovering much closer than necessary. And if Derek pressed a hand against the side of his neck, rubbed his nose again Stiles’ temple, well…that was how Derek sometimes offered comfort.

“Are you alright?” the alpha asked. He knelt beside the bed, daring to neither sit on the mattress or edge closer. His hand hovered awkwardly between them, as if Derek wanted to touch him, but couldn’t follow through. A heartbeat later, he frowned and dropped his hand.

“‘m fine,” Stiles muttered. He pulled the hem of his shirt up to wipe his face. Tears continued to leak from his eyes, and there wasn’t much he could do but blink them away to clear his vision. “‘m fine.”

Derek was there. Derek was _there_.

Five days of silence. Five days of convincing himself he’d misunderstood everything. Five days of wondering and worrying and hating himself for it. Five days of…of…and Derek was finally there.

Stiles couldn’t appreciate it, as much as he wanted to. “What are you doing here, Derek?”

Derek’s expression crumpled—a minute shift Stiles was keen enough to notice. But he didn’t know if the pang in his chest was from his own guilt or the Bond echoing something between them.

The wolf tilted his head, lips pulling into the beginnings of a frown. He dropped his gaze to where his hands rested on the edge of the bed. Derek was pale, paler than normal, but better than when Stiles found him strapped to that hunter’s table. The tender skin just beneath his jewel-hued eyes was red, close to bruising. Stiles often saw it in the mirror. “I wanted to see you, see how you’re doing.” He rubbed his sternum absently—a nervous gesture where Stiles had seen the wisp rise from his own chest.

“It’s ass o’ clock in the morning,” Stiles muttered. He pulled up his blankets and shifted his injured leg with a grimace.                                                                                        

“You were hurt.”

With a huff, Stiles said, “Obviously. Injured in a fight, held captive for days. You know. You were there.”

Derek nodded his quiet agreement to Stiles’ point, then said, “You were hurt _ing_.”

“Hurting comes with injuries, dude. Nature of the beast.”

The alpha smirked, kept his gaze on his hands, which he patiently folded. “Don’t be dense, Stiles.”

Stiles sighed, tired. Typically, people got the hint when he was dodgy. Leave it to Alpha Werewolf Derek Hale to buck the system. To be fair, Derek always knew him well, almost better than Scott—especially after the development of their alpha-emissary relationship.

Before their capture, hope would have welled in Stiles’ chest to think of Derek understanding him, caring for him, of maybe it being _more_ than whatever they were.

During their capture, Stiles promised himself to tell Derek how he felt. Getting Derek out alive, and the hope of maybe _more_ had kept him going.

After their capture, knowing he’d nearly gotten Derek, Erica, Boyd, and Peter killed, the thought made him sick. Derek didn’t need another person so carelessly putting him in danger, and Derek certainly didn’t need to be Bonded to that person.

“Chemosignals?” he asked. Chemosignals meant Derek hadn’t been far from him, even if they weren’t talking, even if Stiles hadn’t known. Chemosignals meant the alpha’s older ways of understanding him, ways Stiles was used to and could expect.

Shaking his head, Derek rubbed his chest again. “It felt like you needed me. So I came.”

Stiles swallowed, sniffled to fight off fresh, hot tears. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I don’t know how this works. I don’t know how to control it. I didn’t mean to—to call you or whatever.”

Dark, expressive eyebrows pinched in confusion. “Do you want me to leave?”

“Yeah,” Stiles said quickly, ignoring how his voice cracked.

Chuckling, Derek said, “You know I can still tell when you’re lying.”

“What do you want me to say, Derek?” he demanded. His face flushed with his sudden anger, the lashing out that came with feeling trapped. He fisted his sheets and slammed an angry punch into the mattress.  “I thought you were dead! I saw them shoot you and I screamed and I fought and I tried and I thought you were dead and my world ended. Then you were alive and we barely made it out. I’m stuck in a bed and you haven’t called or visited and we’re _Bonded_ and I…I just…Jesus, fuck. I can’t do this. I can’t fucking do this. Please leave. Just leave, Derek. I can’t.”

“Stiles,” Derek said, gently. “Look at me.”

Stiles obeyed, reluctantly meeting his alpha’s gaze. He didn’t find anger or disappointment in his expression. Just quiet patience. Compassion. Understanding. He’s trying to be a better alpha, he reminded himself. That’s all it was.

“With your Spark,” the wolf clarified.

He shifted his vision, and sure enough, there was a wisp rising from the center of Derek’s chest. It was where Stiles had drawn runes. It was where Derek absently rubbed. Close as they were, Stiles could see their auras reaching for one another. The markings he’d painted on Derek with his blood—those glowed, too. The Bond. The Bond Stiles forged between them while half dead burned bright and strong and sure.

The alpha’s eyes glowed red, faint crimson to Stiles’ Darach sight, and he ran a finger along the tendril connecting their sternums, the lifeline tying them. “I can see it, too,” he said. “I can feel it like warmth in the back of my mind.”

“What do you want me to say, Derek?” Stiles asked again, helpless. He blinked his vision back to normal and watched Derek’s jewel-hued eyes return.

“Nothing, if you aren’t ready,” the alpha said. “And whatever you want, if you are.”

“Ready for what?” he asked with a weak laugh. “We already took the plunge. We’re Bonded—that ship has sailed.”

Derek raised his brows with a skeptically knowing look, the expression that both questioned Stiles’ claims and knew otherwise. Then he held out his hand, palm up. When Stiles wrapped his fingers around Derek’s, the alpha clutched him firmly, and his veins went tar-black. “You talk in your sleep, you know.”

“And scream, and thrash,” Stiles added wryly. Nightmares. Night terrors. Sleep walking. “Yeah,” he said after a moment, watching his pain pulse up and away through Derek’s touch. “I’m aware.”

“So am I.”

Narrowing his eyes, Stiles asked, “What do you mean?”

“What you don’t want to say. What you don’t want to ask. I know.” Running his thumb along Stiles’ knuckles, Derek continued, “I can usually smell it on you, but I couldn’t tell what it was. But you said it in your sleep, and I can feel it through the Bond.”

“How can you possibly know any of that? How the hell can you even assume that?”

“Am I wrong?” the wolf challenged. “I’ll know if you’re lying, but I’ll respect what you say.”

“Derek, please,” Stiles whispered, looking away. The pain of his leg was a faint memory, and his sleepless night was catching up with him. There was no right answer, no answer that lead to a happy ending or the absence of heartache. Admitting it meant facing Derek’s rejection and whatever weirdness the came with the Bond. Denying it meant appearing ashamed or disgusted and whatever weirdness _that_ brought with the Bond.

“I know guilt, and self-loathing, and unworthiness,” the alpha murmured. “After the fire…” He sighed. “I understand, is what I’m trying to say. If I’m right, I have an idea of what you might be going through. And once you’re through it, I’ll be here, is all. I’ll be here, okay?”

“You really are trying,” Stiles commented with a watery chuckle.

Derek rolled his eyes. “I already said that.”

Tugging playfully at his hand, Stiles laughed again, fond. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to say, “I love you, you know.” 

Then he stopped, mortified, because he was not supposed to say that.

_Fuck!_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can also find me on tumblr: [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/)


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confessions are made.

The words just tumbled forth, unbidden to his will or his plight or the humiliation it would bring. Stiles yanked his hand from Derek’s grasp, his face burning with embarrassment. Horrified, he clutched the sheets in his lap until his hands shook and tore his eyes from his alpha’s achingly handsome face.

Alpha. That’s the closest he’d ever get to Derek. It’s the only way he’d ever call Derek his. His alpha. The same way Erica and Boyd referred to him. The way Isaac sometimes referred to him. The way Peter reluctantly referred to him. Alpha. Pack.

It was a lot, Stiles knew. But it wasn’t enough for Stiles’ hungry heart. It what he craved. He wanted more from Derek. _With_ Derek. So much more.

 He couldn’t bear to see the gentle goddamn understanding Derek’s glowering eyebrows were suddenly so fucking good at projecting. He couldn’t stomach how Derek would let him down easy, how he’d have to see and talk to and share a pack and fucking _Bond_ —for life, forever, intimate and close and such a tease—with Derek Hale who he loved and was in love with and could never ever have. He was so stupid to even think about it, to ever even consider it. To hope for it and want it and need it and—

“Stiles, breathe.”

The building panic, the rambling thoughts halted. All the wolf had done was tell him to breathe, and suddenly Stiles could. Oxygen burned his overworked lungs, enough that when more tears tracked his cheeks, he could tell himself it was from the rush.

Because Stiles was a glutton for punishment, he watched Derek from the corner of his eye. He knew it would hurt, and he didn’t have to face it head-on, but he had to see. He had to  know. For better or worse, and he knew it would be worse, _he had to know_.

But Derek just looked bewildered, confused, _worried_. He didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands now that Stiles had snatched his away, and it was so close to the expression he wore when the Alpha Pack nearly had him kill Boyd, Stiles wanted to puke. That broken vulnerability lasted only a moment before it was replaced with its soon-becoming-standard careful compassion. Derek only let his emotions show for so long before he remembered he had to be a better alpha.

“I’m sorry,” Stiles eventually croaked. Between the tears and the near panic attack, his breath was shuddering, his words stuttered. “I didn’t—I don’t—I hadn’t meant to—”

“Breathe,” Derek reminded him. “It’s okay. Just breathe.”’

So Stiles closed his eyes and breathed. Slowly. In and out, sniffling now and again, and choking down the anguished wails his tears tried to devolve in to. He waited for the Bond to burn, for that cozy warmth to scorch him until he blistered. It never did. Derek didn’t give him the chance to wonder why.

“I love you, too,” he said softly. Then he was pushing himself to his feet with his hands on the edge of Stiles’ bed and taking backward steps towards the window.

“What?” Stiles managed before Derek could leave. He blinked hard through his tears, and suddenly remembered the last time he cried in front of Derek: when Jennifer Blake had kidnapped his father.

The last time Derek saw him cry was when Stiles and Scott were trying desperately to convince him the woman he was seeing— _sleeping with_ , Stiles’ brain helpfully supplied—was the Darach. But even before Scott had thrown the mistletoe at her, Derek had believed them. Stiles could recall the exact moment Derek shifted from ‘what the hell is going on?’ to ‘there’s a fucking threat.’

And, Christ, this had been going on so much longer than he ever realized. Points in their timeline plotted an inevitable course to this moment: Stiles hurt in his bed crying because he convinced himself Derek could never love him the way he loved Derek, and Derek pulling away because he—in his infinite downward spiral of self-loathing—thought Stiles regretted admitting his feelings.

The feelings Derek was trying to coax him to admit from the very beginning.

The feelings Derek had known about for God knows how long.

The wolfsbane bullet. The pool. The summer search for Erica and Boyd. Derek grabbing Jennifer by the throat. Derek’s name on the king. Stiles’ Spark and Derek asking him to be the Hale emissary. Stiles accepting the offer.

Fuck!

Derek forced a pained smile, then turned to duck out of the still-open window.

“Derek, wait.”

The wolf stopped halfway through the window. And there, poised and waiting as Stiles had asked, the golden morning light silhouetted his form—powerful and home in a way Stiles had never thought of or consciously considered, but had always gravitated toward.

“I should go,” the alpha said, his voice measured. “You’re still healing and—”

“Did you mean it?”

“Hmm?” He straddled the sill. Parting remarks Stiles tended to take a while.

“When you said you…”

“Loved you?” Derek finished.

“…yeah,” Stiles murmured, flushing. “Did you mean it? Do you mean it?”

“Stiles…”

“Tell me!”

“Yes!” Derek growled, frustrated. “Yes, Stiles, I meant it. I mean it. I love you, and I’ve loved you for a long time and your scent confused the hell out of me, but I tried to give you space and respect and protect you, but then you _Bonded_ yourself to me to save us and I can’t keep making excuses anymore. But I can’t force you toward something you don’t want or aren’t ready for, either.” His hands shook where he clenched them into fists, and his eyes were open wounds watching Stiles. “Just like I know what it feels like to blame yourself and think you’re undeserving, I know what it’s like to be shoved into the box of others’ expectations and try desperately to meet them. And I didn’t want to do that to you. I’ve felt you hurting, calling for me, but I didn’t know if it was the Bonded emissary needing their Alpha or you needing me, or if you even knew what was happening. All I wanted was to let you know that it was okay to tell me, if you felt that way, if you wanted to. That’s it. And you nearly had a panic attack over it.”

Stiles blinked, swallowed, then blinked again. And because Stiles was still an asshole at heart, he said, “I think that was the most I’ve ever heard you say at once, dude.”

“I had five days to figure it out,” Derek said easily.

“I lied to you,” Stiles blurted.

“You didn’t lie,” the alpha clarified. “You just didn’t come to me right away.”

“I avoided you.”

“I know.” Derek looked hurt to acknowledge it.

“I didn’t want to worry you.”

“You told me.”

“It nearly got you killed.”

“Those hunters weren’t stupid, Stiles. Besides, you were trying to protect me.”

Stiles hesitated before saying, “I was. But it backfired.”

“You came for me, though. Because you love me.” The way Derek’s voice lilted at the end made it sound more like a question than a statement, made it sound more hopeful than sure.

“Yeah,” Stiles sighed.

“And I love you,” the alpha answered immediately.

Clearing his throat, Stiles’ face burned bright with embarrassment—no longer humiliation, but something smitten, something shy. He licked his lips and scratched the back of his neck. “Do you still want to leave?”

“I don’t,” Derek said. “But I will if you want me to.”

“I’d rather you not,” Stiles commented, trying for casual and failing. “If you want to.”

Derek climbed back into the room. When he closed and locked the window, its finality caused Stiles’ heart to hammer against his ribs.

Smirking through the nervousness tingling his fingertips, Stiles teased, “Take your shoes off. Stay a while.” But he didn’t expect Derek to actually listen, to take off his boots and leave them beneath the window, to drape his jacket over the back of Stiles’ desk chair. Derek was staying. Derek said he loved him and Derek was staying.

Holy shit.

Tentatively, the wolf sat down on the edge of the bed and snaked his hand beneath one of Stiles’ to lace their fingers. “Is this alright?” he asked. His veins, dark with absorbing Stiles’ pain, looked even darker against the pale skin of the underside of his forearm. Derek still wasn’t fully recovered, but he did what he could to make Stiles’ comfortable.

It reminded him how stupid he’d been not to see it before.

Stiles traced the lines with a light touch. “Yeah,” he said, quiet, tired. He leaned his head against Derek’s shoulder. He’d done it a dozen times before—in Derek’s kitchen, in his living room, after a long day at school—but this time it felt different. It was warmer, safer, more honest. He didn’t have to worry about letting something slip or scaring Derek off. Derek knew how he felt, and Derek felt the same. “Can I kiss you?”

With a soft hum, Derek nosed Stiles’ temple until he lifted his head, then smiled as he pressed their lips together.

Stiles always imaged their first kiss would be something rough and needy, something that pulled whimpers and whines from him, something that ended with his back against the wall and Derek rutting against him. Some argument heating the tension between them until it boiled over into a harsh devouring of one another and rough sex on the nearest hard surface. He’d thought of bruises and scratches and marking.

But that was lust. Desperation.

Derek kissed him like he loved him.

The kiss was chaste, the gentle press slowly evolving into an equally gentle caress. Derek’s beard—no longer stubble—was soft against Stiles’ face, when he pulled back slightly just to kiss him again. Another press, another slide, slow and easy, like waves. Stiles didn’t mind when he lost time.

The wolf hummed again when he pulled away for good, then nuzzled him. “You should sleep,” he said, the words murmured against Stiles’ temple. “I’ll be here when you wake up.”

“This isn’t because of the Bond, is it?” Stiles asked. He didn’t think he could survive if it was, if Derek only wanted him because some magical connection influenced him. It might have taken Stiles a while to decipher his feelings, but he’d been falling for Derek for a while.

“You were hard to read without it,” Derek admitted. “But no, this isn’t because of the Bond.” He wrapped his arm around Stiles’ shoulders, pulling him until their bodies were flush from chest to knee.

As many times as they’d been close, Stiles took pleasure in how he could finally taste Derek’s pulse if he wanted. Instead, he just rested his lips against the steady _thud-thud_. He felt heavy, tired, and looked down to Derek’s arm where his veins were ever darker. The wolf pulled hard enough that Stiles almost forgot he’d broken his ankle at all.

“You really love me.” It was still so cosmic for Stiles.

“I really love you.” Derek’s pulse thumped steadily where Stiles almost-kissed it.

He hummed contently. “Love you, too.”

“Go to sleep,” Derek whispered.

Stiles did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I could drag this out any longer if I tried.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me through the end. I've never completed a fanfic before, and while I don't believe this comes even close to what I'm capable of as a writer, it's at least finished. FINISHED. Omg it's so liberating!
> 
> Sometimes I feel like I'm shouting into the void when I write, so I am so so grateful for all the comments and love folks have been posting here. It really does light the fire to write and post more. Thank you thank you thank you!
> 
> Feel free to check out my other works, and come find me on tumblr ( [foxtricks](http://foxtricks.tumblr.com/) ) if you want to chat or talk fandom ideas--or anything, really. I also take questions and critiques of my work, if you're inclined to share your thoughts with me.
> 
> <3<3<3  
> salem


End file.
